Primary Care Support England |
Ophthalmic Bulletin – April 2024 Dear Colleague, We’d like to share a number of important updates with you relating to the Ophthalmic Payments service from PCSE. In this bulletin we’ve collated the latest information on: Printing your statement in full Signatures not saved with draft GOS claim GOS claim submission window HC5 patient refunds Adding supplements on PCSE Online for GOS3 and GOS4 claims Continuing professional development allowance Managing the communications you receive Printing your statement in full The results of our Ophthalmic annual survey show that some practices are unable to see the entire statement when downloading it from PCSE Online. The reason for this is that the collapsed view of the statement is being downloaded or printed. To view your statement in full, simply select ‘Expanded‘ rather than ‘Collapsed‘ after you have clicked on the Print/Download option. This ensures all data will be included when you print or download your statement. You can find more information about statements in any of the GOS user guides, available on the Ophthalmic Payments Resources web page. Signatures not saved with draft GOS claim We have been asked why Performer or Contractor signatures on saved draft GOS claims are not there when the claim is re-opened. If any claim form is modified, for example, update an incorrect spelling of a patient’s name or a correction to a prescription, the signature is removed because the Performer and/Contractor will need to check and sign for the modifications. The Performer and/or Contractor will need to sign the claim again prior to submission. GOS claim submission window We would like to also remind you of the validity period for GOS claims: GOS1, GOS5 and GOS6 – this is 3 months from date of sight test,GOS3 and GOS4 – this is 3 months from date glasses/contact lenses are supplied/collected Please note: the 3 month period includes the submission of all claims. Please bear this in mind when submitting claims in PCSE Online or your PMS provider. The 3 month window for submitting any outstanding paper GOS3 or GOS4 claims up to and including 31 December 2023, ended on 31 March. Any paper claims received after this date will be rejected. Should you have have any GOS3 or GOS4 claims that were started prior to 1 January 2024, however are uncollected, these can be submitted on paper and the below 3 months window will not be applied. Please follow the uncollected process of making reasonable attempts to contact the patient. Guidance, provided by the professional bodies, on making accurate claims is available here should your practice require more information. HC5 patient refund forms From 1 April 2024 HC5 refunds are made by BACS. In preparation for the implementation of ISFE2 in 2024, new HC5 claim forms are in circulation which allow patients to request a BACS refund for the cost of a sight test, glasses or contact lenses on low income grounds. These HC5 forms are available for contractors to order in bulk and ICBs are expected to make refunds by BACS where a patient has requested this. HC5 patient refund forms will continue to be submitted to the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) at the address stated in section 4 of the form, however from 1 April 2024 any HC5 forms that do not include the Patient’s bank details in Part 2 of the formwill be rejected by NHSBSA. Where bank details have not been captured, have been captured incorrectly or are incomplete, the HC5 form will be returned to the contractor for them to follow up with the Patient. Adding supplements on PCSE Online for GOS3 and GOS4 claims For GOS3 and GOS4 claims, PCSE Online does not automatically include supplements, even if these have been added to the prescription. To ensure stores are paid correctly for the glasses/contact lenses supplied, we recommend the following:the prescription should include all required supplementsall required supplements should be selected in the supplier declaration section These two steps will ensure the supplements are included in the total claim. This applies to both GOS3 and GOS4 claims. The supplier declaration claim is section 4 in a GOS 3 claim and section 5 on a GOS 4 claim. For example, if the prescription includes a Prism/Tints supplement, the supplier declaration claim section does not automatically include these for the claim. The supplements will need to be selected, or the fee will not be paid. In the screenshot below, there are no supplements included in the prescription, therefore they cannot be selected on the supplier declaration claim section, and will not be included in the total claim. You can find more information, with screenshots, here. Continuing professional development allowance NHS England have confirmed that the payment for continuing professional development, undertaken between 1 January and 31 December 2023 by optometrist, will remain at £596. This relates to optometrists and ophthalmic medical practitioners without another medical appointment. This payment was previously called continuing education and training (CET). The claim window will open on 1 July 2024 and close on or before 31 October 2024. We will publish more information on the PCSE website in due course. Managing the communications you receive We send communications to our customers based on the roles they have on their PCSE Online accounts. This is to ensure that the content in our communications is appropriate for individuals within a practice. For example, if we need to communicate a message about the continuing professional development (formerly CET) claims, we will send an email to PCSE Online users who have the ‘GOSPerformer’ and ‘ContractorSignatory’ roles required to create, sign and submit a continuing professional development claim. If you receive a communication which you believe is not relevant to your current role, please speak to your User Administrator to remove any PCSE Online role(s) that you no longer require. PCSE will not remove roles from a user’s account and we will advise them to speak to their practice user administrator should we receive a request to do so. Up to date user management will prevent users from continuing to receive emails sent specifically to your practice. We now have a ‘Subscribe’ option for primary care colleagues, who do not have a PCSE Online account, to receive additional communications in areas of interest/relevance to them. You can find the link to subscribe on the PCSE website News page. Best wishes, The PCSE Ophthalmic Payments Team |