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Mrs Regular has been a consistent visitor to the local practice over the years as indeed have their whole family. On this occasion she has brought her eight year old child along to have his ears checked and she is being seen as part of follow up and rehabilitation for an injury to an ankle sustained at work.

Mrs Regular and son arrive just prior to the usual commencement time for afternoon surgery. They are met by the receptionist who logs them both into the system as being in the waiting room, hoping to see Dr Jean Scott, who is their usual attendant. [A] When logging the Regulars in, the receptionist has inquired whether this visit for Mrs Regular is part of her work related problem (it is) as well as establishing that the responsible payer for the son’s medical costs is the father, but that the bill should be addressed to Mr & Mrs Regular at their post office box and not at their home address, where a local dog is prone to eat any mail it sees. [B]

Dr Scott eventually sees the two Regulars and records their reasons for encounter and their assessment and treatment in the Electronic Health Record. [C] During the visit Mrs Regular said that the special bandage she was using has almost worn out and that she would like another one as it seemed to be helping her ankle. Dr Scott was able to look up the practice stock of the support bandage and its price and location in the store room. He was then able to issue the bandage to Mrs Regular and have the cost (with a margin) automatically added to the Workers Compensation Account for her. [D]

At the conclusion of the consultation Dr Scott produced the invoice for the Workers Compensation Authority, including the supplies provided for Mrs Regular to submit. [E] She also produced a statement covering the son’s last three visits which has not been paid for. [F] Mrs Regular agreed to pay half of the invoice in cash, and asked that the remaining amount be billed to the family by a mailed invoice which her husband would ultimately pay. [G] Dr Scott quickly accepted the cash and generated a new invoice for mailing and a receipt for the cash she had taken.

At the end of the day the receptionist gathered the cash, cheques and other negotiable instruments and produced the daily banking report and the overall activity report for the practice day. Once these were reconciled the cash and cheques were deposited and the Postal Order was kept aside to be converted to cash the next business day [H]

The next day, following the usual second daily routine, the practice sent the electronic bulk billing claims to the Health Insurance Commission. [I] Review of the reports back from the HIC revealed that some funds had been misallocated and that an invoice that has been disallowed by the HIC was indeed correct and due to be paid. The appropriate changes were made in the accounting records to correct the misallocation and the bill was successfully re-submitted. [J]

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