• Find out the latest on the Best Health App
• Bp and AAPM join forces
• Learn about exciting upgrades to Bp SMS in our free Masterclass
• Opting In and Opting Out
• Bp VIP.net Update
• VIP Gold 9.19 Release
• Bp Allied December offers
• Medicare NASH Organisation PKI Certificates
• Updated John Murtagh’s Patient Education Sheets
• Log me in Rescue
• Tick of Approval for nKPI

For Australian users of Bp Premier

It is exciting times for our Best Health App team, who are currently working on getting ready to begin “Alpha” testing. This is the final stage of our internal testing process before going into a public Beta release. This is done by fully simulating real world usage by setting up virtual practices in our offices and getting people across our organisation to download and use the App just as patients would, once available to them through Practices.

Please stay tuned as we aim to begin public testing during the first quarter of the new year, which is just around the corner! 

The Best Health App will provide Practices the ability to:

• Send Appointment Reminders
• Send Clinical Reminders
• Send Messages about Pathology and Radiology Results
• Send Patient Education Leaflets
• Send MIMs Consumer Medicine Leaflets
• Send Health Summaries
• Send Marketing (Health Related) Messages

Best Practice is delighted to announce our new national partnership with the Australian Association of Practice Management. 

This is a first for the two organisations, which will see Best Practice Software support AAPM’s membership of more than 2,700 Practice Managers around Australia. 

With AAPM celebrating its 40th year in 2019, AAPM’s Chief Executive Officer Nicholas J Voudouris said it will be a big year for the peak body for Practice Managers in Australia and the ideal time to support and promote leading healthcare tools.  “As AAPM heads into celebrating its 40th year next year, we are delighted that Best Practice Software has chosen to join our partnership family” Mr Voudouris said. “AAPM partnerships are based on genuine relationships which enhance the association and most importantly its members”.

For Australian users of Bp Premier

We have some exciting new SMS functions coming soon in Indigo SP1:
o The ability to directly SMS patients from the Inbox
o Follow-up of patient results will be made easier with the inclusion of our Bp SMS feature available in the Follow up Inbox
o Reminders can now be sent to consented patients using Bp SMS
o Utilities Search - utilise our fantastic inbuilt search tool to identify particular groups of patients and contact them securely using our Bp SMS service

So you can make the most of these and all the other new features of Bp Premier’s Indigo SP1 release, we’re happy to offer our free BpMasterclass series to you, along with something a bit special. Based on your feedback, we’re making it easier for you to choose when and where you and your team learn about Indigo SP1.

Our Masterclasses start on 12th December and will run over two weeks at varying times. As well as making the recording available to you via Bp Online, we’re also pleased to provide you with an Indigo SP1 Interactive. This short interactive course takes you step by step through the process of getting your Practice ready for Bp SMS changes. For more information, or to view our Masterclass session times, click here.

And if you’re not using Bp SMS and would like to find out more contact our friendly Sales Team on 1300 40 1111 (Option 1 / 2) or email us.

For Australian users of Bp Premier

There are some important practice responsibilities implied in the roll out of new patient SMS functionality. Here at Best Practice we work hard to ensure our software supports your efforts to comply with relevant regulations. When your patients choose to Opt In or Opt Out of the services you offer via Bp Premier, it is important to remember a couple of important things.

Opting In:  Gaining consent from your patients is clearly a necessity when implementing a process that shares sensitive patient information.  When implementing our new messaging features, it would be an opportune time to revisit your practice’s Privacy Policy and taking a moment to consider your training processes with a particular focus on privacy and confidentiality.

Opting Out:  Our new messaging features open a range of options for you to communicate with your patients.  In some instances, these messages may be of a commercial nature. Advising your patients of an upcoming flu clinic is one example.  These types of messages come under the SPAM Act and therefore it is very important to action the un-enrolling of any patient who requests to Opt Out of receiving certain message types.

For Australian and New Zealand users of Bp VIP.net

Team Bp continues to develop and support Bp VIP.net with some exciting recent developments and more to come.   Our focus is on providing the best possible product to our existing customers, as well as migrating our VIP Gold specialist customer base to Bp VIP.net.   We will also continue to support existing customers wanting to deploy the software at new sites. To give you the best possible service, we have made the decision to suspend new customer sales.

We’ve been busy developing and enhancing Bp VIP.net to maximise our user experience. We recently released our Ruby program update (version) - a major release which contained a significant number of new features and software fixes, including integration with My Health Record.  You can find out more information about the many important updates and changes provided to Bp VIP.net through the Ruby release by clicking here.  In addition, we have released the first Service Pack update to Ruby (named Ruby SP0), which is a smaller release which has delivered further new features and software fixes.  More information about Ruby SP0 is available by clicking here.

For Australian and New Zealand users of VIP Gold

The latest release of our VIP Gold software is now available. A link to the update along with release notes will be in your inboxes now.  It’s important to also check your Junk mail folder, as sometimes these notifications are incorrectly classified by your email service provider.

Along with some enhancements, this update is particularly important for our New Zealand GPs. As part of Budget 2018, the following initiatives came into effect on 1st December and will affect General Practice and your patients.

Changes include:

• Extending access to low-cost general practice visits to all CSC holders. This includes injury-related visits (ACC).
• Extending CSC eligibility to all people receiving the accommodation supplement or who are tenants in social housing.
• Extending zero-fee general practice visits and exemption from the standard prescription co-payment charge (usually $5 per item) on subsidised prescription items for children under the age of 14. This includes after-hours services and injury-related visits (ACC).

The new primary care initiatives are now included within the PHO Services Agreement. The changes provide additional subsidies to enable practices to charge patients no more than $18.50 for enrolled adults and $12.50 for enrolled youth aged 14 to 17 for a standard day time nurse or GP consultation. Note the CSC initiative applies to a standard daytime consultation where the patient is enrolled and excludes after-hours and casual consultations.

Dependents of people with a CSC will also be able to access low-cost visits. This includes young people aged 14 to 17. Practices will be funded for dependents of CSC holders aged 14 to 17, identified in the National Enrolment Service (NES).

As a result of these changes, it will become more important for Practices to have access to accurate information on the CSC entitlement status, as more patients will be presenting their cards and expecting to receive discounted services. While most cards will be linked to a patient in the NES, practices will be able to link CSC cards to patients. Please review your VIP Gold release notes here for more information about this new functionality.

To prepare for these changes practices can:

• Update to VIP Gold Version 9.19.
• Familiarise yourselves with the changes in VIP Gold, specifically on how to retrieve or add CSC holder information and see how the funding status is displayed
• Ensure your NES enrolments are up to date
• Make sure the rest of your team are aware of these changes and have reviewed the release documentation

For more information regarding these new primary care initiatives for New Zealand, take a look on the Ministry’s website here or for questions about VIP Gold, please call our Bp Support team – in Australia: 1300 40 1111 or in New Zealand: 0800 40 1111 (Option 1 / 1).
 

For Australian users of Bp Allied

Bp Allied has some great offers in December for Allied Health Professionals who upgrade to Version 6 – our latest feature-packed release.

Bp SMS – receive 500 free SMS credits when you buy your first pack

Check out the great features of Bp SMS that will save you time and money in your busy Practice:

• Integrates seamlessly into the Bp Allied Appointment Book
• Save costs by reducing “patient no shows”
• Simple workflows and templates to automate reminders
• Support through Bp Allied’s Support team – no third party support required
• Sign up for Bp SMS and receive 500 free credits with your first pack

Tyro – 12 months free terminal rental!

Experience fast, reliable EFTPOS – with Tyro:

• Save time and money with Tyro’s integrated, fast, reliable EFTPOS
• Integrated Healthpoint Claiming
• 100% Aussie Customer Support
• Take advantage of this special 12 month free terminal rental offer before 31st December,

To take advantage of both offers, check out the Ts and C’s here and contact our friendly Sales Team on 1300 40 1111 (Option 1 / 2) or email us.

For Australian users of Bp Premier

How to download your NASH Organisation PKI Certificate through HPOS Portal

Recent Medicare changes mean NASH Certificate CDs will no longer be sent to Practices.  Healthcare provider organisations can now download NASH Organisation PKI certificates via HPOS (Healthcare Provider Online Services).

The new functionality allows the NASH certificate to be downloaded securely via HPOS by Organisation Maintenance Officers. The certificate will be available for download for a period of 30 days from when it is issued.

Click on the links below provide information for your organisation on how to apply, link, register and revoke NASH PKI certificates through HPOS.

• Online NASH Certificate - Request Process v1.0
• Online NASH Certificate - PRODA-HPOS Login Process v1.0
• Online NASH Certificate - Revoke Process v1.0

Please note that organisations whose existing NASH Public Key Infrastructure certificates expire after the 7th November, 2018 will no longer automatically receive a CD in the mail.

Instead, you will be sent a letter approximately 60 days before the certificate expires notifying you of the expiry date and directing you to download a new certificate through HPOS.

Check your NASH Organisation PKI Certificate Expiry

NASH certificates expire after two years and need to be regularly renewed to ensure ongoing connectivity. Check the expiry dates of your imported NASH Organisation KPI certificates in Bp Premier and document when you will need to import new certificates.

Click here to access step-by-step instructions on the Bp Knowledgebase.

For Australian users of Bp Premier

In a three part release, we will be updating John Murtagh’s Patient Information Sheets that are available for our Bp Premier users. This education material is written in simple, non-technical language, and provides a user friendly format that can easily be distributed to patients to help them understand and manage their medical conditions.

The leaflets cover a wide range of topics including pregnancy and postnatal care, children’s health, adolescent health, women’s health, men’s health and the elderly. The extensive range of existing leaflets have been updated to contain the most up to date information. There will also be some new leaflets added, so keep an eye out for these.

The updated leaflets will be released in three separate Data updates, starting with the December 2018 update.

In a previous Evolution we indicated that we would be migrating away from using TeamViewer for remote support and moving over to LogMeIn Rescue.

This transition has now been completed.  To make it easier for our customers to access the correct authorisation page for LogMeIn Rescue we have added a redirection link in the downloads section of the Best Practice Software website.

Support Specialists will direct you to this location to commence a remote session:

1. Browse to www.bpsoftware.net

2. Click on the ‘Resources’ menu and select ‘Bp Premier Downloads’

3. Expand the section titled ‘Utility: Bp LogMeIn for Windows’

4. Click on the Logmein123.com link as shown below:

5. Enter the 6-digit code provided by the Support Specialist

6. Click on Start Download

7. Once downloaded launch the application

You will be provided with a screen that outlines the terms and conditions, please read these and then click on Accept. This will authorise the Support Specialist to connect to your machine and commence your remote support session.

Team Bp recently received two emails about our new nKPI Tool.

We just had to share!

“It is fantastic for us to receive emails like this from Aboriginal health services using Best Practice (this is the second such endorsement of the new BP nKPI report in the last few weeks). This is an impressive achievement by Thomas, Sushant and the Bp team, who have worked collaboratively and very efficiently with us and with health services”.

Stephen Hall, Senior Program Advisor
Primary Health, Data and Evidence, Indigenous Health Division
Australian Government Department of Health

And the email that Stephen referred to…
“Good Morning Stephen,  I wanted to let you know that yesterday we completed the testing on the Bp reporting tool for the nKPI upload.  Thomas has been working with me on this since the end of August and he has done a great job of understanding the errors we were getting and working to ensure the tool is accurate for our first upload at the end of December.  Thank you to Thomas and the Bp team for their persistence”

Kim Passante, Clinic & Quality Manager | Carbal Medical Services

(Pictured here with Tamika from Carbal Medical Services)