The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has delayed some of the more concerning incoming changes to Medicare assignment of benefit rules, according to the RACGP.
After hints from several peak bodies that the DoHDA was urgently coming up with a workable solution for the changes, which were scheduled to come into effect on 1 July, the department appears to have pulled through.
According to the college, the DoHDA will continue allowing GPs to get verbal consent from patients to be bulk billed right through to 1 July 2027.
It has also brought forward its plans for enduring assignment of benefit, which will allow patients to consent to being bulk billed for future appointments.
The enduring assignment of benefit option will only be available for MyMedicare-registered patients, residential aged care patients and patients attending an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (ACCHO).
Patients at ACCHOs will be allowed to have enduring assignment of benefit agreements in place at multiple sites.
Further, the department has also committed to a 12-month “transition” period where it will work with the profession on the new approach and “explore other options to further reduce the administrative burden”, according to the RACGP.
The college also said that the government agreed not to start assignment of benefit-related compliance work until after the regulatory changes are complete.
College president Dr Michael Wright thanked the GPs who had raised their concerns about the incoming changes.
“We will continue advocating for practical alternatives beyond the 12-month transition period to maintain services for patients in care settings where it is not feasible to obtain a patient signature in a timely way, including home visits and patients with disability or acute illness,” he said.
Until today, the changes to assignment of benefit rules would have forced GPs to obtain and store a signature from each patient recording their consent to be bulk billed before or after every single occasion of care.
This would need to be collected before the GP or practice could submit the claim to Medicare.
There were particular concerns for how this may affect patients in aged care and disability settings.
More to come.
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