Online Patient Verification (OPV) Check

Online Patient Verification (OPV) confirms a patient's Medicare card details with Services Australia. Run an OPV before submitting invoices online. An OPV must be completed before invoices for the patient can be sent online when batch billing.

Run an OPV from the patient's Demographic tab

1. Open the patient record and go to the Demographic tab.
2. Confirm the Medicare Card Number and Medicare Card Expiry Date fields are populated.
3. Click OPV next to the Medicare Card Expiry Date fields.
4. The Verification Result screen displays the response from Medicare.

Run an OPV from an invoice

1. Open the Invoice screen for the patient.
2. At the top right of the Invoice screen, click Online Verification.
3. Select Medicare.
4. The Verification Result screen displays the response from Medicare.

When the OPV button is unavailable

If the OPV button shows a yellow error symbol, an OPV cannot be run. This happens when:

• No Medicare number has been entered for the patient.
• The Medicare number is invalid (too few or too many digits).
• HealthTrack has not been set up to transmit to Medicare Online.

Successful verification

• When the patient's details match Medicare's records, the Verification Result screen shows a green tick with the message Patient is Eligible for Online Billing.
• Click Close to return to the Demographic tab or the invoice.

Unsuccessful verification

When the patient's details do not match Medicare's records, the Verification Result screen shows a red circle with the message Patient is Ineligible for Online Billing as well as additional details around the unsuccessful verification. Handle the result based on whether Medicare could match the patient.

When Medicare matches the patient

Medicare returns the fields that differ.

1. Click View Differences. The Merge Patient Details screen opens.
2. Review the Incoming column (data from Medicare) against the Existing column (data in HealthTrack).
3. To update HealthTrack with the data from Medicare, tick each row to update and click Merge Selected.
4. You are returned to the Verification Result screen. Click Resubmit to run the OPV again with the updated details.

When Medicare cannot match the patient

If there are too many differences, Medicare cannot match the patient and the View Differences button is unavailable.

1. Check the patient's Medicare card number against the physical card.
2. Update the patient's name, date of birth, or Medicare details in HealthTrack as needed.
3. Save the patient record and run a new OPV.

Check days since last successful OPV

1. Open the patient's Demographic tab.
2. Hover over the OPV button.
3. The tool tip shows the number of days since the last successful OPV.