A joint investigation byThe Sydney Morning Herald,The Age and ABC’s7.30 has uncovered flaws in Medicare’s systems that make it easy to rort and almost impossible to detect fraud,incorrect payments and errors.
The investigation has also obtained access to teaching materials from an online course that offers doctors step-by-step guides on how to maximise returns and promotes the practices as legal and ethical.
The lecturer explains to doctors how to “pack and stack” Medicare by loading a combination of Medicare billings onto each patient while they are in front of the practitioner. In addition,they encourage repeated returns of the patients for more services.
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“It’s about return of service,OK?” the lecturer says. “We have a tendency to just be like,‘You come to me,I do something for you and then I wait for you to come back’ … we’re trying to engage patients to get them to come back.”
The suggestion is to create a business model to maximise revenue,including setting patient targets for Medicare services. The more services secured,the more rebates are given.
“By utilising and knowing the numbers in the Medicare Benefits Scheme,you encourage people to come back,OK?” the lecturer says. “In our clinic,we do have a target,not a specific target. But we do try to when a patient leaves the clinic … we try and get them to specifically make a plan to come back.”