mymedicare at hwbw

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At Health and Wellbeing Wulguru (HWBW), we value and respect each and every one of our loyal patients, many of whom are across multiple generations, who have formed a trusting relationship with us over many years. We would like to invite all of you, who consider us to be your usual practice, to register with us in MyMedicare from 1 October 2023.   

MyMedicare is a new Commonwealth Government initiative. It is a voluntary registration system that allows you to formally register with us as your usual general practice and preferred GP. This registration aims to strengthen the relationship between you, your GP, and the team at HWBW in order to provide you continuity of care in order to improve your health and wellbeing.

• Enhanced continuity of care and better information about our patients
• Availability of longer telephone appointments  
• Online prescriptions and referrals for our regular patients 
• Expanded bulk billing for some patients 
• Urgent access and triage  
• Confidence that HWBW is your trusted general practice and team

No matter your age, national and international research has shown that having a regular general practice and GP is important for your health and wellbeing. Finding a GP and practice that you trust, and formalising that relationship, is an important step that you can take to assist in helping you maintain your health and wellbeing. It encourages continuity of care. Our practice the first in the country to be involved with research that has shown that regular interaction with general practices reduces hospital and emergency visits, as well as reducing readmissions to hospital.  

Your feedback (from previous questionnaires) tells us that you want us to be informed of what happens to you in the health system when you don’t see us. You expect us to help coordinate and be involved in your care outside of the practice. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of information sharing amongst different health professionals caring for you. By embedding your choice into MyMedicare, registering with us provides a foundation to bridge this gap. 

Registering in MyMedicare will help us better understand you, your needs, and help us better tailor our services to meet those needs. This includes providing us with information about patients who choose us, which will help us to target and focus our health check reminders and health promotion activities.

As your registered practice and nominated GP, our name will be visible on your My Health Record. Most people have a My Health Record but don’t use it very much. Over time, all pathology and test results done elsewhere will have to be uploaded to your My Health Record and be visible to you on your My Health Record App. This will help us collate and be informed about all your care so that we can coordinate care in a comprehensive fashion.

In the future, the Commonwealth Government will use registration with MyMedicare to provide incentives to us that will enable us to provide better and more services to you. This will include chronic disease management items linked into a patient’s registration to support continuity of care with chronic and complex conditions.

Registration will open on 1 October 2023. More information will become available on the MyMedicare website. 

There are essentially three ways you can register with us: 

• You can commence the registration process in your Medicare online services (Medicare Online Account or the Express Plus Medicare mobile application) and the practice staff can then accept or decline the registration in the MyMedicare system.
• Our staff can commence the patient registration process in the MyMedicare and you can then complete the registration and provide consent in your Medicare online services.
• You can fill out a physical registration form at our practice and our staff will then complete the registration in the MyMedicare system with your consent captured on the form.

To be eligible for registration, you must have had 2 in-person visits at our practice sometime in the last 2 years. If someone in your family is registered, you can register without meeting that requirement. More information on eligibility will be available after 1 October 2023.

No. Registration is completely voluntary, and you can withdraw your registration at any time. Also, even if you are registered, you can still attend any other practice at any time, especially if we are closed. You can see any GPs or nurses at any time, not just your nominated GP.

No. You can only choose one practice to register with. Even if you registered with us, you can still attend any practice at any time.

No. Registration is completely free and the Commonwealth government is not paying HWBW for the registration.

Yes. Registration is optional and you can change registration at any time.

All information held by HWBW is private and held in accordance with our privacy policy. MyMedicare simply links you to our practice in the Medicare system, so that this link is visible to you and your other health care providers. As outlined in this fact sheet, MyMedicare does not hold any clinical information (unlike the My Health Record). It does not allow open access to the records we hold. Medicare already has information about you in relation to all the Medicare services you use – this does not change. You can read more about the MyMedicare Privacy here.