This is a guest post by Jenny Massarella, Partnership and Corporate Marketing Manager at Tyro.
Efficiency is fundamental for medical practices everywhere. Streamlined processes mean you can spend more time with your patients, and not lose valuable hours doing administration work. In fact, how you process payments is key, since it can directly affect your productivity, cash flow and customer experience. There’s a lot at stake!
Investing in the right technology ecosystem is essential. In particular, EFTPOS and electronic claiming are a must for healthcare providers. Why? They’re a golden ticket to faster transactions – for both you and your patients. Below, we explore Medicare Easyclaim; what it is, why it’ll make a difference and how to get started.
What is Medicare Easyclaim?
Medicare Easyclaim is an efficient way to simplify bulk-billed and patient claims in your practice. You can use it in two main ways:
- To immediately reimburse privately-billed patients via an EFTPOS terminal.
- To have patients assign their right to benefit directly on the EFTPOS terminal for bulk-billed claims, then have the claim subsequently submitted immediately, eliminating the need for end of day batching.
Why do you need it?
For modern medical practices, your technology ecosystem affects how well you can engineer efficiency into your daily operations. Medicare Easyclaim is a popular, trusted and simple option. Making the transition is straightforward and offers three main benefits, outlined below.
Improve the patient experience
Reducing waiting periods is key to improving patient experiences. No one wants to be left waiting in a queue or wondering when their rebate will come through. Use Medicare Easyclaim to facilitate two second transactions and 11 second rebates in your practice – every day of the week.
Streamline claiming
Streamlining your billing process means your staff can spend less time on basic admin with an integrated payment solution in place. Using Medicare Easyclaim, practice staff only need to enter basic transaction information to facilitate payments. Collection of bank account details is not required. Following payment processed through an integrated solution, every patient can swipe their card to immediately receive their rebate. Instant concession verification takes place.
This means there’s no double handling for your team, and your patients are reimbursed with minimal hassle. It also does away with old technology which requires multiple payment terminals to be used.
Secure transactions
With Integrated Medicare Easyclaim, your staff no longer need to rekey purchase totals into their EFTPOS terminals. As well as speeding up transactions, this will also reduce the chance of errors.
All information sent via EFTPOS is encrypted and sent through a secure network – ensuring patient privacy is maintained. Banks and related institutions are not allowed to collect, store or use any information related to Medicare Easyclaim. As a result the payment process is effortless, secure and error free.
No additional fees
No additional bank transaction fees are charged when using Medicare Easyclaim. This applies to both you and your patients. Standard EFTPOS charges will still apply, including the cost of renting a terminal.
How to get started with Medicare Easyclaim
Getting started with Medicare Easyclaim is – as the name implies – easy. Doctors, specialists, dentists and allied health professionals can all adopt Medicare Easyclaim, with help from an enabled EFTPOS provider. Your enabled EFTPOS terminal can be used, so most practice staff should need minimal training to master the new claiming process.
Using Medicare Easyclaim varies slightly depending on the type of payment:
1. Patient Paid
You can start lodging claims for your patients once Easyclaim is integrated with your EFTPOS system. If your patient pays you the full consultation fee upfront, they can immediately swipe their card through your terminal to receive their Medicare rebate back.
2. Bulk Billed
With Easyclaim, signing a printed form is no longer necessary for bulk billed payments, and no batching or storage is required for bulk bill claims. Your patients can approve their bulk billing status by pressing a button on the integrated EFTPOS machine, saving time and paper.
Payments can then be made into your nominated account within 2-3 working days. You’ll need to register your bank details online before you can use Easyclaim for bulk billing.
What can’t be claimed?
At the moment Medicare Easyclaim doesn’t support claims for the following services:
- Services for veterans.
- Childhood immunisation.
- In-hospital services.
- Complex pathology.
These can be claimed using Medicare online.
Next steps
Contact your EFTPOS provider to get started with Easyclaim. If you’re looking to integrate Easyclaim with your practice management software, talk to a Clinic to Cloud representative today.
