BILLING POLICY AT MACQUARIE STREET MEDICAL PRACTICE
FROM MONDAY 14 NOVEMBER 2016
Many people would be aware that the federal government has made the decision to freeze Medicare rebates from 2013 to at least 2020. Medicare rebates represent the re-imbursement of fees for medical services provided by bulk-billing doctors.
Unfortunately, the costs of running a medical practice have not frozen and in fact continue to rise and, regrettably, in order to allow us to continue to provide the best possible medical care for our patients, we have been forced to follow the path of an increasing number of practices and to revise our billing policy.
From Monday 14 November 2016 the following billing policy will apply at our practice:
- We will continue to provide bulk-billing to pensioners, health care card holders and to patients under the age of 16.
- All patients who have a valid Medicare card will be required to pay a non-rebatable co-payment fee of $30 at the time of their consultation.
- We will electronically submit the patient’s claim to Medicare for the remainder of the account at the time of the consultation.
- Under Medicare procedure, after approximately 2 weeks the patient will then receive a cheque from Medicare by mail in the name of the doctor that they had seen.
- The patient will be required to forward this Medicare cheque to our practice which will settle the remainder of that account.
- i.e. The patient would be $30 out of pocket for their consultation regardless of the length or complexity of their consultation with Medicare paying the balance of the account for each consultation.
- Overseas students with health care cover will be required to pay a $20 co-payment in addition to the schedule fee which is normally directly claimed from their insurance.
- Patients without a valid Medicare card will continue to pay the private fee for their consultation.
