MEDICAL BENEFITS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 17, 15 October 1943, Page 4

MEDICAL BENEFITS

Attendance On Capitation Patients PAYMENT OF MILEAGE An amendment to the Social Security (Medical Regulations published in last night’s Gazette removes the limitation on the distance in respect of which mileage is payable to. doctors, attending patients on their capitation lists. The 20-mile limit in the case of doctors working under the fee-for-service scheme yvas abolished during the last session of Parliament. In any case where a capitation doctor is required to travel more than 20 miles to attend a capitation patient, the medical officer of health may authorize a payment at the rate of 2/6 for each mile or part of a mile, counted one xvay only, in excess of 20. This does not affect the requirement that mileage is payable only in respect of the distance between the patient's home and the residence of the nearest available doctor. The regulations also alter the. method whereby a person may remove his name from a capitation doctor’s list. Formerly the patient was required to produce his medical benefits card before this could be done, but as these are frequently mislaid, the amendment enables a patient either to surrender the card or to furnish a signed statement that the card has been lost or destroyed. If, in reliance-on this, a patient’s name is.removed from a doctor’s, list, the patient becomes liable to a flue if he subsequently' produces the card for the purpose of receiving medical benefits.