Assignment of benefit, agreed in writing.
Send the patient their agreement, record their acceptance, and return a PDF to the patient and the clinic. One form, one signer, one record, kept for as long as it has to be.
$25 a month plus GST, free for the first 14 days (up to 25 sends a day). Cheaper still beside another app.
- From
- Southbank Specialists
- To
- Olivia Hart
- Subject
- Your assignment of benefit agreement
Dear Olivia,
Before your procedure on 14 August, please review and accept the assignment of benefit agreement for your anaesthetic services.
The agreement names each service and its date, and the Medicare benefit you assign to your anaesthetist, who accepts it as full payment.
Single use. Expires 21 Aug. Opening it is recorded.
30 Jun
2027
The day the verbal concession ends. From then on, every bulk-billed service needs a written or electronic agreement.
There is a date on this one.
Written or electronic assignment of benefit has been law since 1 July 2026. Every bulk-billing practice in Australia has to move to something written before the concession ends, and the Department's own advice is to ask software vendors about digital options. This is one.
- No prescribed form to reproduce: the requirement is a set of information, agreed in writing
- Email, so it reaches patients who do not answer unknown numbers
- Not tied to a claiming rail: keep claiming through whatever you already use
Four steps, and the patient only sees one of them.
Build the agreement
Choose the practitioner, the location and the patient, then the services and their dates. The service category is a defined list, not free text, and the provider number comes from your roster.
Email the patient a link
A formatted email from your clinic carries a single-use link that expires. No password for the patient to set, and no app to install.
The patient reads and accepts
The completed agreement is shown in full, then accepted. Clicking accept on an online form is an interaction the Department's guidance already recognises.
Kept, and a PDF to both
The agreement is stored for its retention period, and a PDF in your letterhead goes to the patient and the clinic.
- 14 Aug 08:12Agreement sent to Olivia Hart
- 14 Aug 08:13Delivered
- 14 Aug 09:40Opened by the patient
- 14 Aug 09:46Accepted, PDF to patient and clinic
- 14 Aug 2029Scheduled destruction
Then try it yourself, step by step:
Send an assignment of benefit agreement
Choose the patients, practitioner and services, then send each patient their agreement to accept.
Read the guideWhat Assignment of Benefit does
Required information, checked
What a valid agreement must carry differs by service kind. The form asks for what the patient's situation requires and will not send an agreement that is missing it.
Disclosure before agreement
The disclosure must be given in writing before or when the agreement is offered. The agreement is shown and then accepted in the same step, so the order of screens is part of the design.
Named, dated services, before or after
An episodic agreement names each service and its date. Send one before the visit or after it, for one service or several, to one patient or a list of patients at once.
A whole list at once
Send to a batch of patients in one go. Each receives their own agreement and nothing about anyone else.
You hear when it moves
Opened, accepted or declined, the clinic is notified. A request left too long is flagged to you once, and never chased with the patient.
The patient's copy
The patient should be given their copy, so the PDF is part of the workflow rather than an export button.
Retention, then destruction
Agreements are kept for the period the record type calls for, findable when someone asks, and destroyed on a register when that period ends.
Verbal capture, for the changeover
Practices still relying on verbal agreement can record that it was given and when, which is a way in before the concession ends rather than after.
Accepted in person, in the room
With Rooms, hand a waiting agreement to the patient in the room. They read and accept it on the room's tablet or on the clinic's device, and the PDF says it was signed in person, in which room, and who was there.
Signing is a deliberate act
The patient's name, as the clinic recorded it, is their signature, and nothing is signed until they tick that they are signing.
Deliberately narrow.
Episodic agreements for general services are the commonest case. Enduring agreements bring in eligibility tests, cessation triggers and registration with Services Australia, and they are not part of this app.
Covered
- Episodic agreements, before or after the service
- The defined service categories
- Emailed agreement links, to one patient or a list
- Stored agreements and PDF copies
- Recorded verbal agreement and its date
- Agreements accepted in person in a room, with Rooms
Not covered
- Enduring agreements and their registration
- Claiming: Medervia never claims on your behalf
- Pathology and diagnostic imaging variants
- Practice management software integration
Medervia is designed with Australian healthcare privacy expectations in mind, and it is a tool rather than advice. Your practice remains responsible for its own obligations under the Health Insurance Regulations, and this page describes the product rather than giving a legal opinion.
Part of your clinic, not a separate system.
Start from the patient
Every app can be started from a patient's record or from your contacts list, with several patients ticked at once where the app sends to many. Whatever an app produces for a patient is gathered on that patient's record.
Your records stay if you stop
Cancel an app and nothing it produced is lost. Its records and documents stay with your clinic and on each patient's record, and your patients keep their copies. Only sending new ones stops.
Move to written agreement before you have to.
Set up your roster and letterhead once, then send your first agreement in a couple of minutes.