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Synapse Connect June 2024

18 Jun 2024

Dear Synapse Network,

A Welcome to our Winter 2024 newsletter.

There’s been a lot happening across all our locations recently. It was a very busy Autumn!

We’ve been involved in national media stories, had world conferences to attend, made huge advances in our AI clin…

Advance Health: Shattering Stigma Through Mental Wellbeing session May 2024

27 May 2024

Advance Health May session, ‘Shattering Stigma Through Mental Wellbeing’ brought together key stakeholders to discuss how to improve patient’s mental health journey in healthcare and how to remove barriers to care.

Watch the full session Advance Health: Shattering Stigma Throu…

Criminal Trial – Expert Opinion

7 May 2024

Dr Margaret Faux was engaged to provide an expert opinion concerning allegations of Medicare fraud in criminal proceedings. This project involved analysing over 7,500 lines of Medicare claims and associated clinical records to provide an opinion concerning whether the available e…

Professional Services Review Agency – Expert Opinion

7 May 2024

Dr Margaret Faux was engaged to provide an expert opinion regarding Medicare billing compliance by a medical specialist. This project involved analysing the full sample of claims seized by the PSR and reporting her opinion on whether the evidence supported compliant Medicare bill…

Public Hospital Billing

7 May 2024

Dr Margaret Faux was engaged to provide an expert opinion regarding Medicare billing compliance by a medical specialist billing to Medicare at a public hospital. This engagement included Dr Faux appearing as an expert witness before a state inquiry.

Workers Compensation Billing

7 May 2024

Our client was a state regulator of a workers compensation scheme who was concerned about the incidence of fraud and abuse it believed was occurring in certain areas.

The project involved analysing 32,000 lines of medical billing claims including anaesthesia, surgery, surgica…

Medicare Billing

7 May 2024

Our client engaged us to analyse approximately 26,500 lines of Medicare claims valued at over $35 million which spanned a one-year period. These claims were billed by over 200 GPs.

This project was undertaken in the context of due diligence related to a potential acquisition….

Call for National Medical Records Audit

2 May 2024

Margaret and other health professionals call on the government to give greater powers to the Professional Services Review Agency to conduct national medical records audits.
Anaesthetist Joanna Sutherland (chair of the Safety and Quality Committee of the Australian and New Zealan…

ABC Investigations: Fraud, waste and abuse

2 May 2024

Another informative article from ABC Investigations, published on May 1st 2024, about the fraud, waste and abuse by some medical professionals within the Medicare billing system. This time with a focus on questionable billing by Anaesthetists.

Dr Sutherland, Dr Peck and I have…

Right care

19 Apr 2024

Margaret provides some international context around the size of the fraud, abuse and waste problem in healthcare systems.
The World Health Organization has estimated that between 20% and 40% of all health spending is wasted.

In 2017, The Lancet (one of the most prestigious me…

Medicare fraud vs error

17 Apr 2024

Margaret talks about Medicare fraud vs error as it often comes up and is a legitimate concern.
The difference between error and fraud is the intention, which is difficult to prove. When it comes to our nation’s medical billing scheme, the misuse – whatever the intention – is far…

Identifying alarming Medicare use

16 Apr 2024

In this post Margaret explains how we identify alarming Medicare use.
We analyse healthcare data often, applying global standardised criteria to identify continual discrepancies in what is being billed versus what we would expect to be billed. These criteria factor in the comple…

Medicare Billing Behaviour

12 Apr 2024

Margaret is often asked why she speaks out about bad Medicare billing behaviour, here is what she has to say.
Having worked for many years at the interface of patients, payers and providers, it has become obvious that no one is happy about or trustful of our healthcare funding a…

Uncomfortable truths

11 Apr 2024

History has shown us that the most meaningful changes have come about because of uncomfortable truths.
It is unfortunate that Australian doctors are currently working within a broken healthcare system that lacks transparency, checks and balances. This allows the misuse by some, …

ABC Investigations: Endless Pain

9 Apr 2024

Read about the very personal stories of those that have suffered complications due to surgical intervention as seen in the Four Corners April 2024 episode Pain Factory.

Read The Endless Pain full article here

by Adele Ferguson and Chris Gillett, ABC Investigations…

ABC Investigations: The Price of Pain

8 Apr 2024

Published 8 Apr 2024

Adele Ferguson and Chris Gillett, ABC Investigations

Four Corners has obtained the private health insurance billing records in a major investigation into the chronic pain industry.

The patient records were analysed to Dr Faux and a team at Synapse, a…

Medicare billing law and practice course, an Australian first

8 Apr 2024

Register your interest for this much awaited course from the Leo Cussen Centre for Law website.

Australia’s first Medicare billing law and practice course is for doctors of all specialties, nurse practitioners and all allied health professionals who administer Medicare in an…

Four Corners: Pain Factory

5 Apr 2024

Another deep dive into misuse within our health system:

Next on Four Corners: Pain Factory
8:30pm Monday 8th April
ABC TV, ABC iview

“Our health system is littered with waste and abuse. Australians deserve to know the truth”
Dr Margaret Faux (PhD)

Watch trailer…

Talking Tech Health podcast broadcasts from Arab Health 2024 Conference

2 Apr 2024

This episode of Talking Tech, features experts from United Arab Emirates who shed light on how technological advancements are transforming health care in the Middle East. Thom Soutter, Business Development Director at Synapse Medical Services joins the host of Talking Health Tech…

Arab Health 2024

20 Feb 2024

The end of January marked Synapse Medical Services 8th annual Arab Health conference in Dubai (home to one of our wholly owned offices), hosted at the Dubai World Trade Centre by Informa. This promised to be a very exciting week as three of our senior management team, Dr Margaret…

Advance Health at Arab Health: Health and Movement session January 2024

31 Jan 2024

This Advance Health session gathered experts from diverse backgrounds to meet and explore the intersection of fitness, orthopaedic care, and cutting-edge technology in musculoskeletal wellness. The event provided valuable insights into a holistic approach to health and movement, …

Advance Health at Arab Health: Advancements in Cancer Diagnostics and Treatment

30 Jan 2024

Advance Health assembled in late January 2024 to bring together clinical and pharmaceutical stakeholders to discuss innovations in cancer treatment and diagnosis. This event connected experts committed to reshaping the landscape of oncology care.

Watch the full session Advance…

Synapse Connect December 2023

20 Dec 2023

Dear Synapse Network,

Welcome to our annual Christmas update.

It’s hard to believe it’s Christmas again but here we are! 2023 was another huge year at Synapse during which we focussed on improving existing services and expanded our consulting service. Top of the excitin…

Advance Health special session December 2023

11 Dec 2023

An Advance Health special edition was held at COP28 UAE at the Dubai Science Park to announce details from an upcoming white paper about how the UAE is embedding long term sustainability in it’s health care sector.

The Panel:

Marwan Abdulaziz Janahi  – Managing Directo…

Advance Health session October 2023

3 Nov 2023

An Advance Health session was held on 27th October 2023 which explored the vision to establish the UAE as a regional and global hub for research and innovation in medical science and how to achieve that goal.

Contributors:

Dr Erik Koornneef, Director of Research and Innov…

Questionable business practices expose the health payment system – a spotlight on Podiatry

25 Oct 2023

Listen to Dr Margaret Faux’s insight into our health payment system in another ABC investigation by Adele Ferguson into the questionable and at times shocking practices by the Foot and Ankle Clinic of Australia, including exploitation of funding from schemes such as DVA or Worker…

Healthcare Innovation – Moving from Digital to Smart: Advance Health session

28 Sep 2023

Another great presentation by Advance Health on 22nd September 2023 with a dive into:

what makes a smart healthcare system,
unifying care that connects people,
the environment and infrastructure.

Speakers included Ahmed El Banna, Sultan Al Shaibani, Dr. Louiza Chito…

Synapse Connect September 2023

15 Sep 2023

Dear Synapse Network,

Welcome to Spring!

As Matilda Mania left these shores with our Tillies having done us all proud, we wanted to update you on what we’ve been up to. It’s been a while since we’ve updated our network and boy, have we been busy.

I’m continuing to …

Taking Australian digital health to the Middle East & beyond – Talking Tech Health

6 Sep 2023

Thom Soutter, Business Development Director at Synapse Medical Services joins the host of Talking Health Tech, Peter Birch, to discuss Synapse Medical Services unique approach health care financing systems. They explore how to extend digital health solutions internationally into …

Medicare Fraud Claims – 9News Investigates

29 Aug 2023

“The Jury’s out on whether Medicare fraud is uncommon or going undetected.” reports Annalese Bolt, journalist for 9News in her story delving into potential fraudulent Medicare claims. The Australian Government has only investigated 36 Telehealth services’ claimed but not provided…