Curaeon Help Centre / KB-118
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KB-118Clinical softwareHow-to
Draft. This article is awaiting technical review and may change — if anything here conflicts with advice from our team, follow the team.

Set what your practice charges for private and DVA billing in Settings → Fees

Record your practice's own fee against each MBS item it bills, so a private or DVA invoice line starts at your price and not at the MBS schedule fee, and know how to change a fee, remove one, or switch the whole list off for a while.

Before you start

Important: This page holds prices. It does not choose items. Curaeon never suggests which MBS item to bill: a Medicare claim is a statement by the billing practitioner, and the item is theirs to choose (KB-056 — Why the scribe never writes the Assessment or suggests item numbers).

What a practice fee is, and when it is used

When an MBS item is added to an invoice and nobody types a fee, Curaeon has to start from some figure. Which one depends on how the invoice is billed:

The invoice is The line starts at
Bulk billed The Medicare benefit. With bulk billing the benefit is the payment, so nothing on this page applies.
Private or DVA, and the item has a fee here, and the list is In use Your practice's fee from this page.
Private or DVA, and the item has no fee here, or the list is Not in use The MBS schedule fee.

The same rule applies to any invoice that is not bulk billed.

The MBS schedule fee is the government's reference figure. It is not a private price, and it is almost always lower than what a practice charges. Before this page existed, the only protection against under-charging was somebody remembering the real price and typing it over every line. This page is that memory, written down.

Three things to know:

A tour of the screen

Settings → Fees as an administrator sees it: the In use switch, the Find an MBS item box for setting a fee, and, in this demonstration practice, the line saying no practice fees are set yet. Once you set one, the list of fees appears here with each item's schedule fee beside what the practice charges.
Settings → Fees as an administrator sees it: the In use switch, the Find an MBS item box for setting a fee, and, in this demonstration practice, the line saying no practice fees are set yet. Once you set one, the list of fees appears here with each item's schedule fee beside what the practice charges.

From top to bottom:

  1. The explanation. A reminder that the list is for private and DVA billing, that bulk billing is unaffected, and that an item with no fee here bills at the MBS schedule fee.
  2. In use / Not in use. Whether the list is being applied at all. Everyone sees the state. Administrators also see the Use practice fees switch.
  3. Find an MBS item (administrators only). Where you set a fee.
  4. The list. One row per priced item, in item-number order:
Column What it shows
Item The MBS item number.
Description The item's description. Hover to read it in full if it is cut short.
Schedule fee The government's figure for the item.
This practice What your practice charges, in bold.
Clear (administrators only) Removes the practice's fee for that item.

The schedule fee is shown beside your own on purpose. Reading one without the other is how a fee gets set below the schedule by accident.

If no fees have been set, the page says "No practice fees set. Every private and DVA line bills at the MBS schedule fee until one is."

Set a fee for an item

You need to be an administrator.

  1. In Find an MBS item, type at least two characters: the start of the item number, or a word from its description.
  2. Choose the item from the matches. Each shows its number, description and schedule fee. Up to eight matches are shown; type more to narrow them.
  3. In This practice charges, type the amount as a plain number, such as 95 or 95.00. Do not type a dollar sign or a comma. The box shows the schedule fee in grey as a guide.
  4. Select Set fee.

You will see "Item … now bills at $…". The item appears in the list, and the box clears ready for the next one.

Setting a fee: an item has been chosen, an amount typed under This practice charges, and the warning that it is below the schedule fee is showing.
Setting a fee: an item has been chosen, an amount typed under This practice charges, and the warning that it is below the schedule fee is showing.

If the amount is lower than the schedule fee, the page says "That is below the $… schedule fee." This is a warning, not a block. Charging below the schedule fee is allowed and occasionally intended, but it is almost always a typing slip, and it is the direction nobody notices. Read the amount again before you select Set fee.

Set fee stays switched off, with "Enter what the practice charges for this item first.", until you have typed an amount.

The search finds only items in the schedule that are current today. That is deliberate: a fee is set against a real item number, not one typed from memory.

Change a fee

There is no edit button on a row. To change a fee, set it again.

  1. In Find an MBS item, find the same item.
  2. Type the new amount.
  3. Select Set fee.

The new fee replaces the old one from today, and the row in the list shows the new amount. The old fee is kept on the record with the date it ended.

Remove a fee

  1. Find the item in the list.
  2. Select Clear.

It happens at once, without a confirmation. You will see "Item … falls back to the MBS schedule fee." The row leaves the list, and from then on private and DVA lines for that item start at the schedule fee again.

Clearing does not erase history. The fee that priced past invoices stays on the record.

Switch the whole list off, and back on

Use this when the practice stops charging its own fees for a period, such as a spell of bulk billing everything, without losing the prices.

  1. At the top of the page, flip the Use practice fees switch.
State What happens
In use "Private and DVA lines bill the fees below."
Not in use "Private and DVA lines bill the MBS schedule fee. The fees below are kept and will apply again when this is switched back on."

The list is In use unless somebody has switched it off. Switching it off changes no fee and removes nothing; it only stops the list being applied. That is why it exists: clearing every fee would do the same job, but someone would then have to remember them all to switch back.

Everyone who opens the page sees the state, so reception knows whether the list they are reading is the one being billed.

If you are reception: reading the list

You can open Settings → Fees at any time to answer "what will this cost?".

  1. Check the top of the page says In use. If it says Not in use, private and DVA lines are billing the MBS schedule fee and the list below is not being applied.
  2. Find the item in the list and read This practice.
  3. If the item is not in the list, the practice has not set a fee for it and it bills at the schedule fee.

If a price looks wrong, tell your practice manager. You cannot change it, and that is intended: a price list is the practice's decision.

What is recorded

Every change is in the Audit log with who made it:

What was done How it reads in the Audit log
A fee set or changed Practice fee set, naming the MBS item, with the old and new amount
A fee cleared Practice fee removed, naming the MBS item, with the amount it was
The list switched on Practice fee list turned on
The list switched off Practice fee list turned off

Setting a fee to the amount it already is (typing 95 over 95.00) is not recorded as a change, because the price did not move.

What the screen does not do

If that didn't work

Still stuck? Raise a ticket at support.curaeon.com.au or call 1300 XXX XXX. If your clinic can't see patients right now, call and choose option 1. Support is staffed Monday to Friday, 8:00–18:00 Sydney time; outside those hours a call or text to the same number is answered on a best-effort basis.