I have learned that the medical centre chains are in it for the dosh, and bit like privately owned nursing homes. I only go to independent docs now.
Many clinics are aptly described as ‘medical services suites’. The clinic, signage, and web site has a presence but each doctor is an independent who agrees to participate in common pricing, pays rent, and pays for services rendered to their practice.
This is one of the big ones.
My current GP works in an IPN Centre, and my previous GP worked in a small one off clinic, but today both have similar business models, privacy issues + and -, and different price structures.
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The headline for the article is “Medical centres forcing patients to share their personal data”.
The 30 plus paragraphs of the article fail to provide an example of anyone being forced to sign up to the app. To the contrary, the article mentions one client who chose not tot take up the offer and another who also confirmed that she was not forced to sign up to the app.
Even without the examples provided in the article, it is clear that everyone has three choices:
- To sign up to the app;
- To be a patient of the said chain without signing up to the app; or
- Not be a patient of that chain.
As the evidence shows that choice, rather than any coercion or forcing, is a feature of the offer the headline is plainly false.
You disagree but because the topic title is copied from the Choice article it will stand here unless Choice staff elect to take action.
I favour focusing on the problem rather than semantics. Whether you think it inaccuracy, misrepresentation, click bait or whatever, it calls readers’ attention to what some see as coercive behaviour to essentially sell their information to a rewards program in return for bulk billing. I would punt a guess at to which demographic is most likely to make that choice because of economics, and another demographic that might decline being aware of what rewards programs are and how they make their money.
The program is presented and at the least is an imbalance that a customer can take or leave, although with potential complications to their treatment or bank accounts.
On balance I don’t see anything misleading when reading the article. I suggest you take your views offlline directly to @jblakkarly, the author who probably chose the title, or @BrendanMays who may be the one who copied it for the topic if you wish to pursue it.
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… and pay more.
The very people who need bulk billing are those that cannot readily afford to pay more, especially as the “costa living” crisis crescendos.
Not literally “forced” but “forced by circumstances” - and the policy of the medical centre in question is a part of the circumstances.
From a strictly financial point of view, from the perspective of the business, it makes sense. They get fewer dollars from the patient but make up the shortfall by selling the patient’s data.
In my view, placing spurious conditions on the availability of bulk billing goes against the spirit of what bulk billing sets out to achieve - and the government should simply make it illegal to impose such conditions.
If you seriously think there is no coercion here then … let your mind wander and ask yourself what other intrusive conditions a medical centre could impose in order to get bulk billing. The same 3 choices that you list would continue to exist but surely you would draw the line somewhere?
This comment might be relevant if the mentioned chain had a monopoly on medical services in the areas where they operate.
It probably does go against that spirit. For many years there have been many conditions put in place by various bulk billing clinics that might also be against that spirit e.g. no booking appointments, no choice of doctor, not outside business hours, not for particular age groups etc. However, if the choice is between conditional bulk billing and no bulk billing many, as you have suggested, will choose the former.
What evidence do you have that they are selling patient’s data? What data are they selling and who are they selling it to? Your claim is possibly a conclusion drawn from reading a very poorly written and one-sided article.
Whilst I agree there should be strict limitations on what the medical centres can do with patient data, there has been zero evidence provided about the chain using information for anything that the average person would not be happy with.
The upgrade is already out there with the benefits and it will be even better…
Our Medical Rewards clause 12.
Privacy Policy | Our Medical includes words such as ‘consented’ which one will have by joining the rewards program, as well as ‘opt-out’ while the default seems ‘opted-in’… Comparing the text in the various links is a bit wobbly on what to expect but it appears a typical rewards program that by opting out one will not longer receive ‘valuable information and offers’.
The list of benefits, standard or premium is enticing starting with bulk billing. They obviously want happy customers as much as any business having similar programs. Whether selling it or using it internally it is about building a profile to sell, sell, and sell as well as to provide the services one needs through bulk billing.
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As do I. It’s a very efficient booking and follow up service. Sadly no extra discount offered at the Practice I attend.
Its efficiency is no doubt worth it for the practice.
I am not bulk billed - any small discount I get is the Seniors Commonwealth Health Card and that’s fine by me.
No practice has to offer bulk billing services. I prefer the Doctors can afford to continue working in the practice.
Definitely a slant on how the article is written. Rather than saying clients must pay MORE, it could just as easily be written positively in that members pay LESS.
It’s a choice. Or go elsewhere.
Anything that frees up the admin time of a practice reduces the costs and in this case is fine by me as there is NO evidence (reported) that data is being used inappropriately.
Anyone who is a new patient completes loads of data on their registration forms. Even more at Specialist Practices.
For those of us who have been admitted to private or public hospitals there’s multiple pages of data.
Are people outrag d because there is an incentive?
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I’m not going to pretend that this is absolutely black and white but consider the following real-world limitations:
- in some areas many medical practices have closed their books i.e. are not accepting any new patients - so there may be no monopoly on the provision of medical services but you can’t actually exercise your right as a consumer to choose another practice
- some practices don’t bulk bill at all - so there may be no monopoly on the provision of medical services but if your financial situation means that bulk billing is the only financially viable option then, again, there may be an effective monopoly
… and we probably aren’t going to agree in all cases as to which of those conditions are “acceptable” and which are “unacceptable”. At the end of the day, the government can decide but they have to weigh that against pushing more practices into scrapping bulk billing completely.
My preference would be that bulk billing remains alive but only for those that need it - and therefore the conditions that are imposed must be relevant to “need”. (The easy proxy for that would seem to be that the patient is a holder of some kind of health card.)
I believe that it’s in the government’s political interest that bulk billing remains alive - so I don’t think they want to allow medical practices to impose undesirable conditions on patients in exchange for getting bulk billing.
I’m surprised that’s even legal.
I certainly can’t prove it. There is no transparency regarding the contract(s) between the medical practice and the third party/ies. However it is a logical inference that if a practice is prepared to sacrifice profit by offering bulk billing to a specific patient but only if the patient consents to sharing their private data then the practice would be making up the missing profit somehow.
We need a safe way of sharing health information with health professionals. Companies and owners of businesses shouldn’t be able to skim our private information. Doctors and other health professionals shouldn’t be able to destroy our information because we are not seeing them frequently. Pathology and Radiology services should have a duty of care to the patient/consumer rather than the doctor. Our health information needs to be stored off-site from the practitioner and accessible when we see different practitioners. For example, if we go to a an after-hours doctor or an Emergency department it is unsafe if they do not have access to our medical history and recent investigations. When we go to a Pharmacy correct drug dosage and potential drug interactions need to be informed by our medical history e.g diseases -for example as heart failure…but which type?, kidney tests because it relates to drug dose, medication history, and previous adverse drug reactions. Our health information is a tool and a safety net. It needs be appropriately accessible but also safely stored. What constitutes “our” health information shouldn’t be determined by a health practitioner.
Welcome to the Community @GregJef
You have essentially described MyHealthrecord, the subject of an older topic.
Note the many links to related topics that appear after my initial post in that topic.
With the numbers of data breaches what constitutes ‘safely stored’ and if government, can ‘we’ hold government responsible if there is a breach?
You might not have meant that explicitly but if a health practitioner should not determine what constitutes ‘our health’ then who?
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Hi PhilT,
“Our” health information is everything that is documented in a record. It is not a subset of that record that a practitioner chooses to release to us. I am saying that we have an innate right to our information. Our records shouldn’t be destroyed based on the opinions or needs of another person.
MyHealth record exists. I have used it . Clunky would be how I would describe it. The information in the record is redacted, often absent, at times error prone and there is generally missing data from specialists in private practice. It’s better than nothing and useful at times…especially to hospital doctors. There are multiple silos of information that are not available to patients e.g health insurance, private hospitals, specialists and radiologists. Please note I am making a distinction between a record of a charge or record of an event and the content of the service.
There is obviously a conflict between potential nelfarious misuse of information and the appropriate use of that information to provide a safe clinical service or correct the error of a previous practitioner
The issue of “safety” in the storage of personal information requires policies and rules at a national level informed by appropriately qualified people e.g I.T, systems analysts, security etc.
The quality of clinical information put into a record should meet a minimum standard and should be auditted. The record should be comprehensible to the owner (ie us). In the UK for instance Discharge Summaries from hospital are written for and given to the patient when they leave hospital.
Add to that: governments shouldn’t be able to skim our private information.
The flip side of that is: You, the patient, should be in control. You should be able to limit who has access, limit what is put in the health information in the first place and ultimately you should be able to delete any or all information (and know that it is really deleted).
I’m happy with individuals restricting access to their health information as long as they fully understand that it may disadvantage them when their health professional is making a decision. For instance, you wouldn’t take a blank sheet of paper from the doctor to the chemist to dispense. Normally a health professional is suppose to have sufficient information in order to do their job properly.
By way of counterexample, if a doctor orders a pathology test, I see no need for the pathology company to have read access to anything. They are given a sample and they conduct the indicated test. Job done. On the other hand, they do need “write” access (really “append” access), in order to add the test results.
…except the Pathologist is a specialist medical practitioner and the laboratory staff are university educated and the GP generally will have a poor understanding of the test. The pathology service would be better informing the patient. The doctor will provide some clinical information but the interpretation would be better done by the lab and is conditional on the information they are provided. I know they are treated as hand maidens but they should be more involved…
… and that is completely possible based on what I wrote.
So how does the lab make their interpretation with no context having no read access to the patient’s history?
A Dr should explain the need for the test, one reason is that Medicare rebates almost always depend on the reason for the pathology request. A second reason is that sometimes results are interpreted and samples are studied in response to what the patient is suffering from or appears to be suffering from to give greater clarity.
An example is a PSA test, if it is just a health screening one, then one a year is free, any subsequent are charged to the patient. If a person has or has had prostatic cancer then multiple tests throughout a year are free as long as the Dr requesting the test explains the situation in the referral.
In X-ray businesses (while not pathology) without the right reason a bone density scan will be charged to the patient and not bulk billed. It may also determine if past results need to be reviewed to compare to the new results.
The above are just a small fraction of when clear health concerns need to be clearly disclosed to ensure both proper billing and proper responses by the pathologists or radiologists to the raised requests.
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