As you may be aware, Services Australia is upgrading the current technology used by practice management software, to connect to critical digital health services such as Medicare/DVA Claiming, Eclipse and the Australian Immunisation Register.
Many practice management systems currently connect to Services Australia via a Medicare Client Adaptor, which utilises a Medicare PKI certificate also known as a site certificate. As per the new requirements, practice management software vendors will be replacing this Medicare PKI certificate method with a Provider Digital Access (PRODA) account, which will lead to the replacement of the current Medicare Client Adaptor technology.
What does this mean for your practice?
Practices may have already started receiving information about this change from Services Australia stating that from 13 March 2022, the current methods for accessing Medicare/DVA Claiming, Eclipse and the Australian Immunisation Register will no longer be available.
To ensure your practice is not impacted by this change it is extremely important practices upgrade to a version of software that supports Medicare Web services. It is expected these updates will be available for Bp Premier and Bp VIP.net practices in calendar year Q4 2021 in order to provide our customers with enough time to complete the upgrade prior to the March 2022 deadline.
From a software workflow perspective, there’s expected to be minimal change and the transition to using Medicare Web services for practice staff will be seamless. However, there will be some configuration needed for some products, as part of the upgrade process, to ensure practices have linked their PRODA account as per the new requirements.
What can you do now to prepare? (Bp Premier and Bp VIP.net Practices)
If the practice does not currently have a PRODA account, it’s suggested to create one ahead of time to ensure familiarity with its interface and the appropriate authorisation levels are setup for the organisation.
This will become important when linking practice management software (Bp Premier, Bp VIP.net) to the organisation’s PRODA account. If you already have a PRODA account, you can jump right into linking Medicare Online as a service provider to your organisation. Easy to follow steps are provided on the Services Australia website under “Learn how to add and link Medicare Online (including ECLIPSE, DVA and AIR) to your organisation in PRODA.”
We also highly recommend signing up to our training events, downloading our resources and thoroughly reviewing our Knowledge Base once notified that these are available. We expect to have more information regarding these resources at the end of May.
What is Best Practice Software doing?
We are currently enhancing our Bp Premier and Bp VIP.net products to support the transition to PRODA and Medicare Web services. This functionality will be made available via our Program Updates from Q4 2021, providing our Practices with plenty of time to upgrade their software and become familiar with web services before the software vendors cut-off date in March 2022.
Find out more about Bp VIP.net – a practice management system designed for medical specialists. Any questions? Our team can also be contacted via email at MedicareWebservices@bpsoftware.net.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jess White is manager of commercial & customer enablement at Best Practice Software.
