Monday Pānui 5 August 2024

In today’s Pānui	Draft message to patients re fee increases Summary of capitation funding by age and newborn enrolment changes Musculoskeletal Pathway National Rollout Practice Plus fee increase Recare prescription issue resolved
Draft message to patients re fee increases	We have drafted a message to patients regarding fee increases and actions they may choose to take by writing to the Minister of Health and/or their local MP. Click here to view.
Summary of capitation funding by age and newborn enrolment changes	A summary of the new capitation rates by age for non-VLCA practices, VLCA additional capitation, CSC funding and under 14s can be found here: VLCA Practices may charge $29.50 enrolled patients 18+ years who are not CSC holders Payment for childhood immunisations - $41.20 exclusive of GST Note the changes for newborn enrolments There is no need to sight a newborn’s birth certificate to pre-enrol or enrol a newborn Pre-enrolment and payments for newborns under the B code extends from 3 months to 12 months
Musculoskeletal Pathway National Rollout	A new musculoskeletal (MSK) national pathway has been agreed and is now ready for implementation within Hospital & Specialist Services.  Districts will begin implementing the pathway from 5 August 2024 with each district advising via the GP Liaison team the local implementation date.  All districts are expected to have a pathway implemented by 31 October 2024. (Please note: Auckland PHO has liaised with the Auckland District Teams and further information will be released via a Medinz, hopefully this week). The pathway delivers on a key recommendation from the Planned Care Taskforce, in terms of ensuring patients referred for orthopaedic services can access the right pathway of care sooner, and to support reducing waiting times and wait lists for orthopaedic First Specialist Assessments (FSA). Patients presenting with clinical symptoms who are requiring specialist assessment should be referred to the orthopaedic service as normal. Patients should be advised they are being referred to the orthopaedic service for further assessment by a clinician. This assessment may be provided by either an Orthopaedic Specialist or a Physiotherapist. The new MSK pathway is delivered by advanced clinical practice physiotherapists who hold general scope registration and have completed the Health New Zealand advanced capability framework. Read the full memo here.
Practice Plus fee increase	Please note that Practice Plus have increased their fees for some of their consultation services effective from 1 August 2024: For any queries regarding this new pricing, please contact help@practiceplus.nz
Recare prescription issue resolved	A ReScript electronic prescription issue was identified linked to a PMS update in Medtech 32 and Evolution. This issue only affected ReScript prescriptions without a specified pharmacy selected. In this situation, a text should have been sent to a patient's phone, but the text was not sent. Patients could not select a pharmacy, so the prescription was unavailable. Your practice may have been affected if you use ReScript for prescriptions and Evolution or MedTech 32 PMS and had a recent update. While the issue has been resolved evening of 2nd August, please consider checking if your prescribing has been affected. If detected, the issue will have arisen at the time of the PMS update.

Barbara Stevens | Tumu Whakarae/CEO