Pracsoft Knowledge Base
Medicare Australia and Post Office Boxes in Pracsoft

This document outlines the procedure required for sending claims on behalf of Patients using a post office box as their permanent mailing address.

In the Patient Claiming window, all addresses submitted are considered temporary addresses by Medicare - P.O. Boxes are not accepted in this field. For Patients who require their cheque to be posted to a P.O. Box, the address must be held by Medicare and the appropriate option selected when storing or transmitting the Patient Claim.

Some patients have reported that they have not been receiving their Medicare cheques. This can happen for two reasons:

o      The address held by Medicare is a previous/incorrect address.

       If the address held by Medicare is incorrect, the patient can telephone 132011 to change the postal address to the P.O. Box. This must be changed prior to storing / transmitting the patient claim, or the cheque will be posted to the incorrect address.

       Once Medicare has the correct postal address you may proceed with storing or transmitting the Patient Claim.

       The visit must not be recorded until the address details are changed with Medicare.  You cannot go back and re-store or re-transmit a patient claim once the visit has been recorded.

       If it s not possible to change the postal address with Medicare before storing or transmitting the claim, a temporary residential address must be specified for the cheque to be sent to (this cannot be a P.O. Box)

 

o      The user is not selecting the Address held by Medicare option in the Patient Claim window

       If the patient requests that their cheques should be sent to their P.O. Box, you must ask the patient if the P.O. Box is registered as the postal address with Medicare.

       If the P.O. Box is registered with Medicare make sure you select the ‘Address held by Medicare’ option when storing or transmitting the Patient Claim.