Page 3646 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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These clauses amend section 72 of the act relating to early payment of medical expenses. This will provide flexibility around the 28-day notification period for access to early payment. Chapter 4 of the act already extends the time limit for a compensation claim while a claimant is under a legal disability. Therefore it is appropriate that the notification time limit is also extended in the same circumstances for receiving the early payment for medical expenses.
Accordingly, this amendment allows an extension of the 28-day notification time frame where the injured person is under a legal disability. The intention of this provision aligns with the objectives of the act by providing an added incentive for injured people to access medical treatment and rehabilitation services as soon as possible to facilitate quicker return to health.
This amendment is made in response to the public accounts committee inquiry into the bill, which expressed the view that section 72 should be amended to provide some discretionary extension to the 28-day time frame for an injured person to notify their insurer.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (5.35): We will not be supporting this amendment. We have an alternative way of dealing with the time frame for application for early payment.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (5.35): We will be supporting the amendment.
Proposed new clauses 6A and 6B agreed to.
Clause 7.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (5.35): I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name [see schedule 4 at page 3686].
Amendments 2 to 6 deal with the early payment of medical expenses. The Greens very strongly support the early payment provisions, and this is an attempt to further strengthen those provisions. Currently not enough people take up this option and anything we can do to improve that is a good thing.
The amendments will extend the period in which the early payment forms can be submitted. Currently this is limited to 28 days and the amendment proposes to extend it to 30 working days. This should ensure that fewer people miss out on the early payment option. Changing the requirement to working days recognises that an injured person is dependent on other parties and professional certificates which may be delayed because of public holidays. Effectively we are changing the requirement from four to six weeks, which we think is quite a reasonable change.
We have also received a number of concerns about the way the NRMA is administering the scheme and managing the early payments like an ordinary claim rather than just reimbursing the expenses incurred. To deal with this issue we are
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