This appeared a few days ago.
Think you're busy now? More work uploading e-health summaries is on the cards
Department of Health expected to 'lift the bar' for e-PIP qualification, adviser says
20th June 2018
GPs could be forced to upload more shared health summaries to qualify for the Practice Incentives Program eHealth Incentive when My Health Record becomes opt-out in December.
Dr Steve Hambleton, a Brisbane GP and adviser at the Australian Digital Health Agency, says he expects the Department of Health to “lift the bar” for the so-called e-PIP.
When the requirement to upload summaries for at least 0.5 per cent of patients was added to the e-PIP in 2016, almost one-third of practices did not meet the target.
However, Dr Hambleton says the target is not a big number.
“I’m a part-time GP and I do it in one day. I presume many practices are exceeding the minimum already,” he says.
“I think the department is going to lift the bar to encourage the upload of shared health summaries.”
Dr Hambleton was formerly the chair of the predecessor to the digital health agency, NEHTA.
More here:
So what we have here is a part-time GP (and ADHA paid adviser) telling a lot of full-time and quite busy GPs they are going to be forced to use a system which, from their perspective, is clinically pretty useless, more and more in coming years. And this being suggested by the guy who was chairman of the totally failed and much reviled NEHTA. What do you reckon could possibly go wrong?
I understand full ePIP for a reasonably large – and thus busy – practice yields about $20,000 a year or about $400 a week. Taking into account that with all the practice expenses, staff etc. a GP probably needs to bill about $250/hour of $2,500 a day. Even at bulk billing practices the charge is roughly $150/hour.
This means the ePIP covers about 2 hours a week to do all the record checking, curation and uploading that is required for all the Shared Summaries.
Comments on the Australian Doctor website reflect a sense of outrage with such an extra imposition – especially with the Medicare Rebate still pretty much frozen for many years.
This sort of heavy-handedness is likely so see a significant degree of pushback unless what is required is both financially feasible and clinically useful. Let’s be clear here. The myHR is an additional workload beyond what GPs already do with their own records and is as such it is not going to be welcome unless it is pretty unobtrusive and at least financially slightly positive. It is not, and never will be, a system GPs use to manage the care of their patients. Only very muddled thinking would assert otherwise..
I will be very interested to watch what happens if these changes are introduced.
David.
2 comments:
Putting together a shared health summary is claimable on the MBS as part of a consultation, but not as a standalone activity, so its not like the entire process is only funded by ePIP.
Fitting in a SHS preparation and upload - if done according to the AMA's guidelines - would take a significant chunk out of a standard consultation, to the detriment of the patient.
The GP might get an extra payment and the government their data, but the patient wold lose out.
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