Compliance – not just an individual responsibility

In Australian Medicine this week, Dr Brian Morton, Chair of the AMA Council of General Practice, discusses Medicare compliance and appropriate billing. He highlights that the responsibility for ensuring compliance under the Health Insurance Act falls not only to the individual but also to the practice.

Dr Morton discusses the outcomes of the Department of Health’s Large Practices Project, which found that practice managers and staff have more responsibility for billing than expected, that practice or business protocols affect the accuracy of Medicare billing, and the culture of the practice, rather than its size, can have a significant influence on claiming behaviour. He writes that these findings have reinforced the need for accessible education materials, and for targeted feedback on billing practices.