In short: DocHelp sets up TAC and WorkCover billing correctly in Best Practice, builds tracking worksheets for scheme accounts, and manages medico-legal report requests, scoping, quoting and billing for GPs and medical centres in Melbourne and Australia-wide.
WorkCover · TAC · DVA · Medico-legal reports · Tracking
First, the consultation is billed to Medicare because reception did not know the patient had a claim, or the claim details were never entered. The scheme fee is higher than the rebate, and the claim is now wrong. Second, the scheme account goes out and nobody follows it. Ninety days later it is still unpaid and nobody can say why. Third, and this is the big one, a lawyer writes asking for a report, the doctor spends hours on it, and the practice invoices it at the scheme’s short-report rate, or not at all.
Treating practitioner reports requested by the WorkSafe agent or the TAC are paid under their published fee schedules: short, standard and comprehensive categories with a fixed maximum for each, updated each July.
A medico-legal report for a claim is a different service: a full chronology, treatment history, and an opinion on causation, capacity and prognosis, prepared to the lawyer’s brief. It is quoted to the requesting firm before the doctor starts, on the hours and complexity involved, with payment terms agreed in writing.
Patient, claim number, insurer or agent, date of service, item, amount, date sent: entered the day the account goes out, by the person who sent it.
Scheme remittances matched line by line. Paid amount recorded, not the invoiced amount, with any shortfall queried the same week.
Anything unpaid at thirty days is followed up with the case manager, with the call noted on the worksheet.
One page for the owner: scheme billings, outstanding, average days to payment, reports quoted, reports paid.
No. WorkCover and TAC consultations are billed to the scheme under its own fee schedule and item codes, with the claim number and accident date on the account, never to Medicare.
No. The RACGP’s own guide states plainly that the preparation of medical reports falls outside the scope of Medicare. Reports are paid for by whoever requests them.
There is no ceiling on a lawyer-requested medico-legal report: the fee is agreed with the requester and should reflect the actual work. The largest single report fee DocHelp has had paid is $10,500, for a medico-legal report requested for a WorkCover patient.
Yes. We work with the doctor and the patient’s legal team on what the report needs to answer, agree scope and fee in writing before the doctor starts, and manage the timeline, the consent and the invoicing so the doctor writes and the practice gets paid.
General information for practice owners and managers. Scheme fee schedules are published by WorkSafe Victoria and the TAC and change each July; medico-legal report fees are a matter for agreement between the practitioner and the requesting party. This page is not legal, tax or financial advice.