{"id":1381,"date":"2014-02-13T13:19:55","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T02:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=1381"},"modified":"2014-02-13T13:19:55","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T02:19:55","slug":"senior-doctors-rorting-queensland-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=1381","title":{"rendered":"Senior Doctors rorting Queensland Health"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>double-billing<\/li>\n<li>charging but not present<\/li>\n<li>overtime while on holidays<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1>Queensland auditor-general refers some public hospital doctors to CMC over possible fraud<\/h1>\n<div>By Melinda Howells<\/div>\n<p>Updated\u00a0Tue 11 Feb 2014, 7:15pm AEDT<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2014-02-11\/qld-health-minister-lawrence-springborg-november-2012\/5252076\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Qld Health Minister Lawrence Springborg\" alt=\"Qld Health Minister Lawrence Springborg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/image\/4382000-3x2-340x227.jpg\" width=\"340\" height=\"227\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2014-02-11\/qld-health-minister-lawrence-springborg-november-2012\/5252076\"><strong>PHOTO:<\/strong>\u00a0Mr Springborg admits better checks are needed.(ABC TV News &#8211; file image)<\/a><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/?q=-28.07607,153.414073(QLD)&amp;z=5\"><strong>MAP:\u00a0<\/strong>QLD<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) has been asked to investigate whether some senior doctors have defrauded Queensland Health by claiming excess overtime and double-billing.<\/p>\n<p>The auditor-general investigated 88 of the state&#8217;s 2,500 Senior Medical Officers.<\/p>\n<p>He found that seven of them did not attend work during their rostered hours for more than 30 days, and that doctors who were on leave were paid $500,000 in overtime.<\/p>\n<p>Health Minister Lawrence Springborg says the evidence gathered warrants further investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Springborg says the report shows systemic failings and &#8216;double-dipping&#8217; by some doctors in the state&#8217;s public hospitals.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The report highlights gaps in both rostering and attendance processes and treatment and billing practices, which have been open to exploitation,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>He says some doctors were paid overtime while on holidays, turned up late but claimed overtime, or billed patients privately when they had no right of private practice.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Inadequate oversight and administration, and we&#8217;ve had double dipping and we&#8217;ve had people that have taken advantage,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Springborg admits better checks are needed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m talking here today about a small number of doctors &#8211; the majority of people are doing the right thing,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Matters are going to be referred to the Crime and Misconduct Commission in Queensland.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Also there are a number of recommendations which have been made to improve scrutiny and oversight in the system, which will all be implemented and adopted by the Government.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Report a &#8216;smokescreen&#8217; amid contract push<\/h2>\n<p>Alex Scott from the Together Union says the report comes as the State Government pushes for individual contracts with doctors.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This Government is trying to use a smokescreen of this auditor-general&#8217;s report to completely misrepresent the true state of affairs in relation to the hours of work for doctors, the private practice arrangement for doctors,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Shaun Rudd from the Australian Medical Association says it is an attack on the profession.<\/p>\n<p>He says only a small percentage of Senior Medical Officers appear to be involved.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If that&#8217;s correct that&#8217;s very worrying,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;However again it&#8217;s usually a system problem in the fact they&#8217;re probably working somewhere else in the public system, or it&#8217;s not been recorded what they&#8217;re actually doing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The problem with the Queensland Health system has been that it is a system which has been very difficult.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s had its problems as well with the payroll system etcetera.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The vast majority of doctors in the public system work long and hard.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The report comes amid a dispute between the State Government and unions about putting senior doctors onto individual work contracts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>double-billing charging but not present overtime while on holidays Queensland auditor-general refers some public hospital doctors to CMC over possible fraud By Melinda Howells Updated\u00a0Tue 11 Feb 2014, 7:15pm AEDT PHOTO:\u00a0Mr Springborg admits better checks are needed.(ABC TV News &#8211; file image) MAP:\u00a0QLD The Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) has been asked to investigate whether &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=1381\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Senior Doctors rorting Queensland Health<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,24,9,22,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-data-saving-lives","category-file-note","category-healthcare","category-policy","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1382,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381\/revisions\/1382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}