Oa No. 41 - Incapacity Reconciliation

COMCARE OPERATIONAL ADVICE NO 41

INCAPACITY  RECONCILIATION

Branch Managers

State Managers

Manager, Operations

Manager, Review

Manager, Rehabilitation

Stage Executive Officer

From 1 July 1989, Comcare will be reimbursing all Agencies for every incapacity payment advice (determinations) issued via Compense, ie all incapacity determinations with an "A" status except for off‑budget agencies where the date of injury is before 1.7.89.

This effectively means that each month a report will extract details of incapacity advices issued by State Office and then a cheque is prepared by the Central Office Benefits Payment section reimbursing incapacity payments made to employees by the appropriate agency. To‑date Comcare has only been doing this in isolated cases.

To ensure that correct payment is made it will be necessary to ensure that keying of 'old' determinations onto Compense is ceased until Compense 3.0 is released at the end of July. An 'old' determination in this case is where the person has an entitlement to incapacity payments and has been receiving such without a valid determination on Compense, or retrospective periods of incapacity are being up‑dated for NWE purposes.

This restriction also applies to the cases which the Finance and Systems Branch (formerly Premiums and Budgets) identified as not having a valid payment advice (incapacity determination) on Compense as at 13 April 1989. My memorandum dated 7 June 1989 (copy attached) refers. These cases should continue to be identified however and post 1.7.89 incapacity determined if applicable.

Basically, retrospective payment advices should not be issued for any cases until Release 3.0 is available if the purpose of the advice is to up‑date earlier payment advices or issue a payment advice for a long‑term case where there is no valid post 1.12.88 advice.

Retrospective determinations can still be issued where liability has just been accepted for the condition and/or where the period of incapacity is only now being considered for initial payment by Comcare staff. Release 3.0 will enable records to be added to Compense which will have a history transaction status that the system will recognise as not for reimbursement to agencies.

In summary, payment advices issued by Comcare from 1 July 1989 will result in a reimbursement cheque being issued to Agencies. Any queries on the above should be directed to Maxine Danaro on 062‑750608.

SUE HAMILTON

Deputy Chief Executive

4 July 1989

State Commissioners

General Managers (for information)

RECONCILIATION OF WEEKLY PAYMENTS

The Department of Finance has enabled users of the Finance Pay System to debit compensation payments in the nature of salary directly to the Comcare Trust Account. This means that over 100 departments and statutory authorities have access to this account for payment of fortnightly compensation payments.

Initially, Comcare was not equipped to readily reconcile the debits made to the Comcare Trust Account with the payment advices (determinations of incapacity) issued by Comcare's State Offices. Paxus Comnet (Csironet) was contracted to design a reconciliation system to assist with this task. Briefly, the Incapacity Payments Reconciliation System is designed to match payment records from Finance against payment advices issued by Comcare.

The Benefits Payment Team has begun processing Department of Finance tapes from Pay 13 (22 December 1988) to current Pay 24. This is assisting us to locate those agencies who are incorrectly debiting the Comcare Trust Account.

In the process of doing this reconciliation exercise, we have discovered a large number of mismatches. In determining the reasons for these mismatches, I need to ask State Offices to assist us in reconciling payments debited from Comcare's account and payment advices issued by State Offices. Your assistance is sought in determining why a large number of long‑term compensation recipients are being debited to the Comcare Trust Account which do not have a valid post 1.12.88 payment advice (determination) in force. Enclosed is a list of cases being debited through the Finance Pay System in your state, where there is no valid payment advice post 1.12.88 but where there is a case registered on Compense for the employee.

It would be appreciated if you could examine these cases to ascertain if a valid payment advice should be issued or whether the Agency has been incorrect to claim funds and should be asked to refund the monies to Comcare. Each list of cases provides extra columns for payment advice (determinations) details to be included. A copy of the completed report will be required by the Benefits Payment Team.