Ramy Burjony's Blog
Double dipping?
Thursday, March 11, 2010
From my understanding when a patient requests a whole year’s cost printout to give to Work and Income NZ for reimbursement, this is double dipping.
Excluding everything that is not fully subsidised, a patient, and whoever qualifies to be included on their exception card, need only pay a maximum of $60 per year for all their subsidised medication, taking into account they have accumulated over 20 subsidised items within the space of a year.
That seems to be very reasonable to me. It means any other costs incurred will be paid by the government in full. Yet still some people complain about this small charge.
This brings me to my point. When people present their yearly cost printout to WINZ, does WINZ pay them all that money back, and if so why? The medicines are already being subsidised, yet that $3 co-payment is being paid back.
What are the criteria for getting those charges paid back by WINZ, and who qualifies?
The other question I have is, why is it those printouts are never verified by the WINZ employees who are approving the payouts? The printouts do not always exclude non subsidised items, so does that mean the patient is reimbursed for everything regardless of subsidy status?
This all seems airy fairy and it seems like a lot of money is being wasted due to lack of diligence when handling such claims.
Cheers
Ramy Burjony
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