[LINK] Your Medicare records online

[Ivan Trundle]

On 03/03/2010, at 3:57 PM, Craig Sanders wrote:

>> In Australia, any optometrist can test your eyes at any time - either
>> free, or for a fee, which is entirely at the optometrist's discretion
>> (they generally won't charge you if they can get you to buy some
>> lenses and frames).
> 
> why, then, was my new optometrist unable to bulk bill my eye test?

Simple. Because Medicare do not allow it.

> given that there was several hundred dollars in frames and lenses in it
> for him, i think it's unlikely that he'd just make up something that
> would cost him some business.

Some eye shops engage consultant optometrists and have less flexible billing arrangements (they have to pay for the service, rather than absorb it into their overall costs), so I can understand a level of reluctance if the overall profit margin was reduced to a negative, even though the test itself takes precious little time.

> it wasn't that he wanted to charge me extra (or charge me at all). he
> said he wasn't allowed to bulk bill the test at all. a week or so later,
> there was no problem. my medicare-indenture had expired.

There's your answer: he would rather recover money from taxpayers than accept you as an immediate customer. 

He was probably convinced that you would wait until the bulk-bill test could be carried out. By the sounds of it, the wait was worthwhile for him.

iT