The Practice has the choice of sending the Patient claims immediately or storing them up for later transmission.

o      If an internet connection is available on each computer in the surgery then it is recommended to send all claims immediately (within the Patient Claiming window, click ).

o      Sending claims immediately is dependent on the availability at Medicare Australia of the Medicare Australia computer system. If you are billing out-of-hours (see the Medicare Australia web site for business hours then the recommended approach is to store these claims and send them at a later time (within the Patient Claiming window, click ).

o      If an internet connection is not available on each computer and you wish to use the Patient Claiming functions on all computers then it will be necessary to use the 'Store and Forward' functionality (within the Patient Claiming window, click ). The claim is stored and then sent to Medicare Australia later in the day from a computer with an internet connection.