Medical Accounts: Procedures, Legislation, and Resources

This report serves as a comprehensive guide to medical accounts, designed to inform a new work colleague about the intricacies of medical practice administration. It begins with an overview of Australia's healthcare system, highlighting its universal nature and funding mechanisms. The report then delves into the practical aspects of scheduling medical appointments and billing patients, including various appointment scheduling methods and the importance of accurate patient information. The role of a medical administrative assistant in processing patient referrals is explored, emphasizing their responsibilities in matching patients with specialists. The report also outlines the steps involved in processing medical accounts, from patient registration to generating patient statements, and covers essential legislation that medical practices must comply with, such as the Healthcare Quality and Improvement Act and the Affordable Care Act. Finally, it identifies resources available to medical practice staff to assist them in providing advice to patients about fee structures, entitlements, and rebates, ensuring patients are well-informed about their healthcare costs and coverage.

Prepare and Process
Medical Accounts

Table of Contents
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Australia’s health care system................................................................................................1
Scheduling medical appointments and billing patients..........................................................1
Role of a medical administrative assistant play in processing referrals patients...................1
Steps for processing accounts in a medical practice..............................................................2
Legislation that medical practices must comply with............................................................2
Resources available to medical practice staff to assist them to provide advice to patients about
fee structures, entitlements and rebates..................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

MAIN BODY
Australia’s health care system
In the context of healthcare system of Australia, it is stated that it has a universal
healthcare system which is known as the best as it provides effective, affordable and safe
healthcare for all people of Australia (Willis, Reynolds and Keleher, 2016). It is funded by all
income group of people as well as all levels of Australian government such as: state, local,
territory and federal. In addition, it is also stated that in Australia, there are several effective
health care providers and it is the reason that Australian enjoy the highest life expectancy.
Scheduling medical appointments and billing patients
Patients make appointments in order to visit doctors because it is not possible for
healthcare professionals to see all patients in a day and at a time so they require scheduling
appointments. There are several ways by which scheduling o medical appointments can be done
such as:
Make Patients appointment over phone: It is one of the main steps in which patients
appointment are being done on a phone and noted on books. After that they are being given 2-3
time options or time slot options on order to make them decide to visit professional as per their
convenience. There is a fixed time of each healthcare professionals and specialists on which
basis time is being given to patients (Sholem, 2019). They also need to take care of numbers of
patients as per the time limit. They cannot give appointment to several patients. After that, they
need to take down or note down each scheduled patients’ informations. After completing all
these basic and important steps, scheduled manager requires to given a small reminder to patients
about the time and their appointment.
Role of a medical administrative assistant play in processing referrals patients.
Medical administrative assistant plays several roles such as: interacting with patients in
order to make them feel comfortable, scheduling appointments, coding electronic medical,
maintaining records and providing treatment to referral patients. In the context of referral
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patients, it can be said that they see the referral form and disease of the client and as per the
nature of disease of referral patients they sent them to specialists. By matching patients’
requirements with physicians they sent patients to referral patients and them also communicating
with patients regarding appointment and documentation queues (Barnes and et.al., 2018).
Steps for processing accounts in a medical practice
There are some steps of preparing and processing medical accounts such as:
Register patients: It is one of the main step, whenever patients call for appointment,
there is a requirement for registering patients name with other details.
Financial responsibility: It describes who owes what for particular appointment. It is
important to know that which types of services are covered in insurance and which are not.
Patients check in and check out: When patients check in then they are asked to fill
forms and it should be happened at the time of their exit in order to have knowledge about final
amount.
Preparing claims: The medical biller takes the super bill which is also known as final
bill from the medical coder and puts it either into a paper claim form, or into the proper practice
management or billing software.
Generating patients’ statements: After that finale statement are being made or
prepared.
Legislation that medical practices must comply with
Legislation or laws play an important role in health care because it protects people at
work and also allow patients to protect themselves and getting safe and effective healthcare
services. There are some legislations which is required by medical practices to comply with such
as: health care quality and improvement act, Anti kickback act, affordable care act, patient safety
and quality improvement act as per the Australian legislation structure (Pinder and Ghosh, 2019).
Emergency medical treatment and active labour act is also important which needs to be complied
by medical practices in order to improve quality of healthcare.
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Resources available to medical practice staff to assist them to provide advice to patients about
fee structures, entitlements and rebates
In the context of resources available to medical practices, it can be said that there are
several resources which makes medical practices able to provide healthcare services to patients
in an efficient manner. It is important for patients to know each and every detail about their
problems and treatment which are being given to them. Some important areas whose
informations play an important role for patient to have such as: Fee structure in order to know
that for which treatment they paid amount. Other area is entitlements and rebates in order to
know about amount which is being covered by insurance. Some resources include: doximity,
executive forum.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journal
Barnes, P.A. and et.al., 2018. Perceived factors influencing hospital-based primary care clinic
referrals to community health medical nutrition therapy: An exploratory study. Journal of
interprofessional care.
Pinder, T.A. and Ghosh, D., 2019. Complementary medicine regulation in Australia.
In Nutraceutical and Functional Food Regulations in the United States and around the
World (pp. 387-398). Academic Press.
Sholem, S.L., 2019. Value-based scheduling system. U.S. Patent Application 16/141,151.
Willis, E., Reynolds, L. and Keleher, H. eds., 2016. Understanding the Australian health care
system. Elsevier Health Sciences.
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