What you need to know

• A pilot of new correspondence is being undertaken which aims to improve participation by under screened cohorts and promote self-collection.
• This correspondence will be distributed to around 400,000 cervical screening participants throughout May – July 2021.
• There will be an increased demand on cervical screening tests during this period (July to October 2021), including self-collect vaginal swabs.

Background

The Department will test newly designed correspondence against its current correspondence, to identify the best way to encourage participation in this group of Australians.

The Department, through the National Cancer Screening Register, will be disseminating correspondence to initial pilot cohorts during July to October 2021; which will be then evaluated to inform a broader roll-out in early 2022. An NCSP letter and information sheet will be sent to people identified as very under-screened or never-screened for the National Cervical Screening Program

The Department will be using this pilot as an opportunity to actively promote self-collection through the designed correspondence, as all participants in this cohort will be eligible.

The Department has advised that there may be impacts for practices in terms of activity within the National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP) which may result in a small increase in appointments booked for cervical screening and an increase in requests for self-collected HPV tests, from July to October 2021.

Want to know more

Please send any queries regarding the pilot to NCSPCommittees@health.gov.au

The upgrade will replace the existing Medicare client adapter and public key infrastructure (PKI) certificates that are currently used in practice management systems to connect to digital health services.

Medicare Web Services promises to be more efficient than the existing technology and will not require healthcare provider organisations to install new hardware or software, but it does require that they register for a Provider Digital Access (PRODA) account. This will come into force after March 13 2022, and will see PKI or site certificates phased out.

Medicare Web Services will integrate directly with your PMS for a smoother online claiming process.  

The authorised person in your organisation can prepare your practice by: 

1. registering for an individual PRODA account
2. registering your organisation in PRODA
3. adding members of your organisation to PRODA and delegating one or more attributes, authoring them to perform certain functions on behalf of your organisation. Members will need to have their own individual PRODA account
4. registering subsidiary organisations in PRODA, if relevant
5. registering your organisation's B2B devices in PRODA when your software becomes compatible with the new platform. 

Learn more

To find developers that provide software for Medicare Online (including DVA claiming), ECLIPSE, and AIR, click here.

To learn more about how Medicare Web Services changes will affect your practice's software:

• if you use MedicalDirector, click here
• if you use Bp software, click here.

To support broad access to COVID-19 vaccines across Australia, there are still opportunities for general practices to join the vaccine rollout using AstraZeneca initially, and then Pfizer later in the year as more Pfizer vaccines become available.   To join the rollout, practices must:

• meet the site requirements, and
• be accredited (or undergoing accreditation), or participating in the National Immunisation Program.

If you are interested in participating in the program, please complete this short online form.