National Enrolment Service full roll-out imminent

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eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

The National Enrolment Service is live in all but six general practices and could be used as the source of enrolment data for capitation-based funding payments from next month.

The NES is designed to be a single source of truth for all national enrolment data. The primary care sector began implementation of it in July 2016.

Ministry of Health group manager community health service Andrew Inder says the service is now in use in 99.5% of general practices and in the most recent comparison between CBF and NES payments there was an 0.22% variance at a national level.

“The PHO Services Agreement Amendment Protocol group has agreed that a transition to NES should happen at the earliest opportunity and has established a working group to finalise the details that will allow this to happen. The working group will recommend an appropriate implementation date,” Inder tells eHealthNews.nz.

An August update from MoH says a proposal has been put to the PSAAP that NES could be used as the source of enrolment data for CBF payments from October 2018.

The update says the move to monthly CBF payments from NES will benefit practices through improved accuracy and regular capture of the growth in the enrolled population of PHOs.

Nationally, up to 22,000 patient changes occur between practices each month, as well as patients enrolling for the first time.

Previously, enrolment information would need to be sent quarterly and practices might not know for months if one of their patients had enrolled with a GP elsewhere. Now they get an instant notification and National Health Index information is automatically updated if changed elsewhere.

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