Medicare Patient Verification

Recently, Medicare enabled a new online facility to verify patient Medicare numbers.  The service is particularly helpful if the patient does not have their Medicare Card with them or verification is needed for some other reason.  It compliments (but does not replace) other Online Patient Verification tools that may be available in practice management applications, such as Pracsoft.  Initial feedback from practices suggest that the service can save 30 mins on the phone to Medicare to confirm these details.
 

The Patient Verification system allows you to verify card details, search by name and receive a Medicare number and you can also submit a bulk verification of multiple patients by uploading a spreadsheet.  A spreadsheet template is provided on the site.

To use the site, you must install your Medicare Location certificate on the computer you wish to use, for instance the Practice Managers computer and/or a reception computer

To install the location certificates, please follow the guides on the Medicare Website. Separate guides exist if you are installing the certificates on Windows XP or Vista.  For convienence, links are given below.

MacOS Firefox
Windows XP With a login prompt
Without a login prompt
Windows Vista With a login prompt
Without a login prompt


To do a search

    1. Using a web browser, start www.medicareaustralia.gov.au
    2. Select “For Health Professionals”
    3. In the top right hand corner, it will say “HPOS Logon”, hit the Logon button
    4. A new window will pop up, in the bottom right hand corner, under “Practice Staff Logon” select “Logon with PKI (location certificate)”
    5. A window will then popup with the certificate details – click “OK”, depending on which installation option you used, you may need to enter a password
      (if you keep the browser open, subsequent logins wont prompt for the certificate)
    6. You will need to Agree to terms of use on each login scroll down and hit “I agree”
    7. You are then prompted with a screen to Confirm Patient Details, Search Patient Details, or Multiple Details Requests


This only works on computers with the certificates installed.

Selecting "Multiple Details Requests"will present a screen where you can download a blank spreadsheet template and also upload a completed spreadsheet of patients for verification.