For the first 3 months of this year very many PRSI patients could be treated
under the pre-budget arrangements.
For that reason the PRSI chargescale was left as the default for PRSI patients.

However in the update published today that changes and for these patients the treatment window opens with the Private chargescale selected.

For the minority of PRSI patients still covered by the old rules the user will
have to manually select the PRSI chargescale.

For a complete listing of the changes in the current update please view the
release notes on the download page

Although it may pale in comparison to this (“10 tips Obama can take from Tiger”) improving Panara’s support for the PRSI scheme 3 days before it was all but obliterated feels pretty stupid. The change in the program was designed to remove the hassle of phoning Donegal by sending the Department auto-generated emails instead. I promised to put it in a few months ago, thought about dropping it after MacCarthy and then decided to go ahead anyway. For those surgeries who do decide to continue supporting this exam-only scheme the new feature will save on staff time and phone costs. 

Panara already includes DTSS approval and claim generation and printing, claims reconciliation and instant online checking of medical card numbers. In the update due in early January there will be improved support for reclaims in line with suggestions from users.

The forthcoming further reduction in fees paid for work on medical card patients makes anything that can save admin costs more necessary than ever.

Yes, it’s Teamviewer again today!
Because this week they’ve announced the release of version 5.
The main attraction of this for me is that it promises to support VOIP, which would complete the remote support package as far as I’m concerned.
Currently it’s common to talk over the phone during a session in order to ask questions, give answers etc so it would be good not to have to do this anymore.
And Teamviewer are promising dial-in numbers for many countries for people without a voip set so that they can use a phone as a substitute.
As a lot of practices here would be in that situation I’d like to see such a number for Ireland before making up my mind on upgrading.
Another factor of course would be if carrying audio as well as video had an adverse effect on the currently excellent spped of the service. A trial of the new version should answer that one though.
Finally, of course there’s the cost. Having purchased a premium licence in mid September I missed out on a free upgrade by less than two weeks. That’s the problem with deadlines, thresholds etc, it’s more unpleasant when you find yourself just on the wrong side of one.
Still Teamviewer were good enough to offer me a special discount of 50% on the upgrade fee when I asked. Good PR on their part and it made me feel good for having asked.