"Poor staff attitude"

Dear lacertaxf36,

Thank you for taking the time to write about your experience at Kerang Medical Clinic, and describing the confusing communication about the billing process for your appointments, and the approach of the medical receptionists towards your queries.

I would really like to talk to you face to face, (or at least by phone) and would be happy to meet you to discuss your situation so that I can be clear on what has happened and over what period of time. I can be contacted on 03 54509210, or emailed on ckeogh@kerhosp.vic.gov.au if you would like to send me an email with a contact number to phone you on.

I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Kind Regards

Chloe

Dear lacertaxf36,

Thank you so much for taking the time to phone me today, and for clarifying some aspects of your journey. It was good to listen to your story and hear what had happened to you over this period of time.

My role is the Director of Clinical Services at Kerang District Health and part of this role is the Executive supporting the Kerang Medical Clinic, which has been why I have been involved in following up your situation.

On investigation with the Practice Manager, I believe that there was a number of miscommunications in your journey. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to you for these communication issues. Communication with people when they are feeling unwell is very important, and I believe that in the process of following up the billing with you these issues actually escalated rather than improved, despite good intentions. The communication issues were about how many visits were to be bulk billed and then that confused what amount was owed, and this was impacted by the time that it took for the Kerang Medical Clinic to return your calls questioning some of these matters, then there were some communication issues with the manner of following up with your questions.

I will follow up with the points that you make with the Kerang Medical Clinic Practice Manager and we will look at how we address billing issues moving forward, that keeps the patient well informed, able to explain their situation and to come to a solution.

Again, thank you for speaking about your experience, and sharing with readers how things were for you.

Kind Regards

Chloe

Dear lacertaxf36,

Please accept my apologies for taking so long to get back in touch with you.

This has been a long and lengthy conversation, with reception staff, the practice manager and the Doctors. We have changed a few of the processes in the clinic (behind the scenes) so that this situation will not happen again. I will list the changes so that you have some understanding:

1. The Doctors are now trying to speak with the patient about the billing process at the start of the consultation, so that there are not any surprises when you go to pay. This is important because some people come to a 15 minute appointment with 8 things that they want to discuss, that would take 60 minutes to go through, so the Doctors are trying to address the most important issues and then making arrangements to have the other things on the list attended to at another appointment time- this is to try and run on time, and support the community getting in to a Doctor when needed.

2. The Doctors are communicating with the reception staff the billing for the patient. Reception are encouraged and supported to contact the GP at this point if they feel that there is a discrepancy between what the patient was expecting to be billed.

3. At the end of each day the practice manager checks each Doctor's billing, and then the Doctor checks it, to ensure that it matches what was expected. This is a double-check for the billing amounts, and whilst it may not have stopped your discrepancy, it does ensure that the billing for the day is being carefully checked.

4. Communication about billing issues. The clinic has a billing policy that is available for people to read. Billing is based on a schedule set by medicare, which is a combination of the length of time of the appointment, and then what is done in the appointment, and what was treated. All the clinic staff are aware that the process for billing is complicated and they are all (from your story) trying to communicate clearly the information that patients need to know, to avoid any confusion or miscommunication.

I hope these changes will support any patients into the future who may have billing issues at the clinic. I would like to thank you for taking the time to tell your story, and whilst these changes are too late to avoid the experience you had, I do hope that they can help prevent the same thing happening in the future.

Kind Regards

Chloe