Refund a Medicare payment

This article describes the Medicare Refund functionality in Bp Premier, including how the refund is handled in billing history, banking, and disbursement reports.

Refunds of payments to Medicare are often required for various reasons. The new Medicare Refunds process allows you to record a service claimed via Online Claiming as having been refunded to Medicare.

The Medicare Refunds process replaces the previous process, which required a support call to Best Practice Software to acquire a script to remove the payment, allowing you to place the service into a manual direct bill batch and write it off.

A service can now be marked as refunded directly from the Online Claiming screen. The process automatically reverses the payment, creates a payment reversal credit, records that the payment was refunded, and writes off the service.

IMPORTANT   There is no transmission to Medicare. You must still contact Medicare, submit the relevant paperwork, and generate the refund payment via direct credit or cheque as you do now.

In this article:

Before you begin

To use the Medicare Refund function, the following conditions must be met:

  • the logged-in user requires the Medicare Refunds user permission set to 'Allowed'.
  • the batch must have a State of 'Received' or 'Reconciled'
  • the service must have a State of 'Paid'.

Refund a Medicare payment

  1. Select Management > Online claiming from the menu or press Ctrl+F9. The Online claiming screen will appear.
  2. Select the batch containing the service you need to refund. Right-click the service in the bottom half of the screen and select Refund/Adjust Payment. The Refund/Adjust Payment screen will appear.

    3. Refund or adjust Medicare Payment

  3. Select 'Refund entire payment to Medicare' from Select the type of adjustment.
  4. Select the Refund method by which your practice will refund the amount to Medicare: Direct Credit or Cheque.
  5. Enter any applicable Comments to explain why the refund is being made. The comments will show on the Online Claiming screen.
  6. Click OK to process the refund.

What do I do next?

Pay the refund amount back to Medicare by the method your practice normally uses (and indicated in step 4).

The service will be updated as 'Written off' in the billing history and adjustments will be created to reverse the payment and show the payment being refunded to Medicare. You do not need to manually adjust any payments to doctors. The refund to Medicare will be deducted automatically in all payments, services, and transactions reports.

If the service is being refunded because of an error such as a wrong item number, create a new account to process the refunded service correctly.

Partial refunds

Options for partial refunds include:

  • Part refund to Medicare leaving remainder on current item. This option caters for situations where a site has been overpaid by Medicare, and is required to return part of the payment.
  • Part refund to Medicare and increase No. of patients value. This option caters for situations where a site has been overpaid and Medicare asks for part of the payment back because the site has indicated the incorrect number of patients in the original claim.
  • Part refund to Medicare and set In Hospital flag. This option caters for situations where a site has been overpaid and Medicare asks for part of the payment back because the site has not ticked ‘In Hospital’ in the original claim.

Part refund to Medicare Leaving remainder on current item

  1. Select Management > Online claiming from the Bp Premier home screen or press Ctrl+F9. The Online claiming screen will appear.
  2. Select the batch containing the service you need to partially refund. Right-click the service in the bottom half of the screen and select Refund/Adjust Payment. The Refund/Adjust Payment screen will appear.

    3. Perform a part Medicare refund

  3. Select Part refund to Medicare Leaving remainder on current item from Select the type of adjustment.
  4. Select the Refund method by which your practice will refund the amount to Medicare: Direct Credit or Cheque.
  5. Enter the Amount to refund to Medicare.
  6. Enter any applicable Comments to explain why the refund is being made. The comments will show on the Online Claiming screen.
  7. Click OK to process the refund.

Part refund to Medicare and increase No. of patients value

  1. Select Management > Online claiming from the Bp Premier home screen or press Ctrl+F9. The Online claiming screen will appear.
  2. Select the batch containing the service you need to partially refund. Right-click the service in the bottom half of the screen and select Refund/Adjust Payment. The Refund/Adjust Payment screen will appear

    3. Part refund to Medicare and increase number of patients value

  3. Select Part refund to Medicare and increase No. of patients value from Select the type of adjustment.
  4. Select the Refund method by which your practice will refund the amount to Medicare: Direct Credit or Cheque.
  5. Enter the correct No. of patients. The Amount to refund to Medicare will be automatically calculated.
  6. Enter any applicable Comments to explain why the refund is being made. The comments will show on the Online Claiming screen.
  7. Click OK to process the refund.

Part refund to Medicare and set In Hospital flag

  1. Select Management > Online claiming from the Bp Premier home screen or press Ctrl+F9. The Online claiming screen will appear.
  2. Select the batch containing the service you need to partially refund. Right-click the service in the bottom half of the screen and select Refund/Adjust Payment. The Refund/Adjust Payment screen will appear.

    3. Part refund to Medicare and set the In Hospital flag.

  3. Select Part refund to Medicare and set 'In Hospital' flag from Select the type of adjustment. The Amount to refund to Medicare will be automatically calculated.
  4. Select the Refund method by which your practice will refund the amount to Medicare: Direct Credit or Cheque.
  5. Enter any applicable Comments to explain why the refund is being made. The comments will show on the Online Claiming screen.
  6. Click OK to process the refund.

What do I do next?

Pay the refund amount back to Medicare by the method you have indicated in the Refund method field.

The service will be updated as 'Written off' or 'Part written off' in the billing history depending on if you created a part or full refund, and adjustments will be created to reverse or partially reverse the payment and show the payment being refunded to Medicare. You do not need to manually adjust any payments to doctors. The refund to Medicare will be deducted automatically in all payments, services, and transactions reports.

If the service is being refunded because of an error such as a wrong item number, create a new account to process the refunded service correctly.

See Medicare Refunds Frequently Asked Questions for more information.

Last updated: 30 October 2024.