90 day pay doctor cheque scheme

How the scheme works

When a claim is lodged with us for an unpaid or partially paid medical account, we send the patient a Pay Doctor Via Claimant (PDVC) cheque. To get your payment, the patient has to forward the cheque to you.

If you don’t get the cheque or you haven’t banked it after 90 days, we’ll cancel it and pay you the Medicare schedule fee using Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).

Eligible health professionals

General practitioners

General practitioners (GPs) don’t need to register for the scheme if they submit claims electronically for unpaid or partially paid patient accounts.

GPs can use Medicare Online, Medicare Easyclaim or Electronic Claim Lodgement and Information Processing Service Environment (ECLIPSE) to submit their claims.

GPs who submit manual patient claims can register for the scheme. To register, complete the General Practitioner 90 Day Pay Doctor Cheque Scheme Application form (HW074).

Specialists, consultant physicians and pathologists

If you’re registered with Medicare as a specialist, consultant physician or pathologist you must submit your claims electronically. This doesn’t apply to GPs with specialist recognition. GPs can manually submit patient claims.

Learn more about how to submit Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) claims through Medicare Online, ECLIPSE or Medicare Easyclaim.

Ineligible practitioners

Allied health professionals, optometrists and dentists aren’t eligible to participate in the scheme.

Patient authority

For an unpaid or partially paid account, a patient or claimant must submit a request for a PDVC cheque. The cheque will be issued to you in lieu of payment.

To submit a claim on behalf of a patient, you must:

• clearly inform the patient of what will happen
• include written authority from the patient with the patient’s signature and the date of the claim.

An example of written authority could be:

I authorise the practitioner, who will render services, to submit my unpaid or partially paid account to Medicare. I understand that Medicare will assess my claim and issue a cheque to the practitioner for the Medicare benefit.

Patient signature ___________________

Date ___/___/___

We recommend that your practice keeps evidence of the patient’s authority for audit purposes.

Bank account details

We use the same bank account you provided for the payment of bulk bill claims.

Each week we’ll email you a statement. The statement will list the previous week’s EFT transactions made under the 90 day cheque scheme.

To register to receive payment by EFT or to update your bank account details, complete the Provider registration for Electronic Funds Transfers payments form (HW029).

You can subscribe to receive emailed statements through the Health Professional Online Services (HPOS) mailbox.

We aren’t liable for any bank fees or charges when you present a cheque to your bank 90 days or more after the date of issue.