COVID-19: Changes and new Medicare items to support you and your patients
As you may be aware, Medicare has recently released changes to COVID-19 services and items to better support practitioners and patients during the coronavirus outbreak. We'd like to let you know that your Halaxy is up to date with the latest changes - so keep reading to learn how you can update your fees and process Medicare claims via Halaxy.
As per Medicare's latest announcement, from 6 April 2020:
Telehealth fees allowed beyond bulk-billing: health providers can apply their usual billing practices to telehealth consultations. This means that if you usually charge $200 for a service provided face-to-face of which $120 is rebated through Medicare, you can continue to charge $200 for the same service provided via telehealth with the $120 rebated to the patient in the same way as if the appointment were face to face. This is an important change, recognising the need to ensure financial viability for practitioners.
The only caveat is that the service must be bulk-billed where the service is provided to a concessional or vulnerable patient or a child under 16 at the time the service is provided. For all other patients, your usual fee practices can apply.
Specialists: 22 new MBS items have been introduced for telehealth and telephone services for consultant physicians, geriatricians and consultant psychiatrists. These mirror the existing services for consultant physicians (132 and 133), geriatricians (141 and 143) and consultant psychiatrists (289, 291, 293, 296, 348, 350 and 352). These have already been added into Halaxy’s fee database for you to import.
Halaxy's got you covered:
New fees ready to be imported
Your Halaxy has already been updated with the latest fees. All that eligible practitioners need to do, is to import the fees that are relevant to your profession or update the fees on your Fees page.
Process your telehealth claims via Halaxy
Processing Medicare and DVA rebates via Halaxy helps with social distancing and removes the need for manual paperwork or clunky eftpos facilities, and external hardware - saving you time and helping you and your patients get on with their day.
Processing rebates via Halaxy is also particularly helpful when doing online consultations.
Whenever you have a Medicare and DVA appointment (in person or online), Halaxy automatically pulls together everything required for the claim (patient details, appointment fee, referral information, etc), as well as reminders and clinical notes templates, so you don’t need to do anything except treat the patient.
How much does it cost to process rebates?
Processing a Medicare or DVA claim via Halaxy costs 1 Halaxy credit - you can purchase credits for $0.10 each anytime before Easter. There is no charge for rejected claims.
Learn more about rebates processing in the manual or
Watch the rebates processing video below: