DVA referrals: Low-care nursing home patients

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Hello all,

I have a question RE: DVA GP referral letter / D904 form, and low-care patients in ACF's.

Some pods see up to 25-30 patients a day in ACFs, for a full day's work. Clearly, it's very busy and given the patient can't attend the GP's practice, it's thus difficult to have contact with the patient's GP to complete the DVA referral.

Does a referral letter/D904, therefore, actually have to be completed for low-care ACF patients ?? - Will DVA pay a submitted voucher, if a referral letter has not been received?

How does this work in practice?? What say you all???

Thanks for ur input.

 

First, I think it would be an uphill battle to argue to the DVA that you should be paid when the GP has not 'officially' referred them to you...so that's not advisable. Cannot find the exact page - but a valid referral is a pre-requsite unless they are visiting interstate and then you can't charge an initial consult - only a standard consult.

If it is critical to attend to someone - phone the GP surgery and ask for a Fax referral before TX - otherwise you work for free.

If non-critical ask the pt to arrange a D904, or ask for it yourself from the GP prior to TX, third option insist that the Nursing staff get the GP's signature on D904's at his/her next visit - I know this is all time consuming -but arguing with the DVA about no-D904's or non-payment will be even worse...

Personally, my DVA pt's would never arrange their own D904's unless I insisted - so I have to insist or else they can seek Tx elsewhere (they ALL get visited at some time by a GP, even Med-call etc so its not impossible to arrange even if they tell you it is!! If you start doing their D904's you'll be ALWAYS doing their work for them sorry to say!) - some Pod's have acres of time to do this ppwk - not me, so its up to the individual.

Bottom line: NO D904 - probably no pay from DVA...



I hope this helps?

 

Thanks heaps for your reply Julian. Greatly appreciated.