Two group insurers are using a technology which claims to cut the cost and turnaround times of doctors’ reports by one-third.

Aviva, now part of MLC’s burgeoning group insurance business, has been trialling the system, produced by Melbourne-based medical software company Zedmed, for almost a year. Tower, whose group insurance arm famously snared a mega-contract with AustralianSuper last year, has also just commenced a trial.

Zedmed’s eXchange system can ‘talk’ to any of the three software systems which dominate Australian doctors’ surgeries. Between them, Medical Director, Best Practice and Zedmed’s own package run 85 per cent of practices in the country, with Medical Director having a 60 per cent share to itself.

Extending the technology required for when one of its packages are replacing a Medical Director system, Zedmed’s group insurance product allows a claimant’s Primary Medical Attendance Report (PMAR) to be retrieved automatically from their doctor’s backoffice, and sent to the insurer that’s requested it via a secure online link.

Making the process easy for over-worked doctors has allowed Aviva/MLC to cut one-third from the industry average PMAR turnaround time of 20 days, according to Zedmed’s Geoff Street, and achieve a one-third reduction in the average $143 cost of one of the reports.