I am a fee for service VMO haematologist at a public hospital in Sydney. My head of department has indicated that we are not permitted to bill for inpatient blood product transfusions (eg: item 13703) for inpatients admitted to the hospital under our care (public or private). Apparently this directive has come from the hospital finance department. Is this correct? As haematologists, many  of our inpatients require blood product transfusions during their stay. I understand that we can only claim for a single transfusion item on a given day (as we would for a single chemo item 13950), but please could you clarify why we are not permitted to bill for transfusions at all when they are part of a treatment required for inpatient care?

Patients under ROPP in a Clinic must ‘elect’ for the duration of their referral according to our LHN guidelines. If they cannot ‘elect’ because of an absence of a named referral, we understand their ‘public’ status infect (for want of a better term) downstream requests and reports: e.g. Pathology in a public or private pathology system — YES: public e.g. Imaging in a public or private imaging service – YES: public e.g. PBS Scripts for outpatient treatment – NO: remains eligible for PBS if meet criterial However what about for other Procedures – Steroid injection by a Rheumatologist in outpatient public or private clinic (referred by name from Public clinic) – Flex-sig by a Gastroenterologist in a outpatient public or private clinic (referred by name form Public clinic) – Chemotherapy infusion by same Public oncologist self-referred to Public or Private chemotherapy infusion centre