ACC and SXI document
Wed, 06 Dec 2017
Dear Colleagues,
At the recent meeting of teh New Zealand National Board of RACS the attached letter was presented. It is from Southern Cross Health Society and is addressed to ACC. ACC are happy for this to be circulated. You will see that Southern Cross are trusting that surgeons proposing treatment for a condition consider whether the treatment is for a consequence of an accident. If so then an ARTP is expected but if there is no causal relationship between teh condition to be treated and an accident with ACC cover, then an ARTP is not required and an application can be made direct to ACC.
This should streamline patient care as well as avoid significant unescessary work from ACC. Processing a declined ARTP takes much longer and is more costly than an accepted Surgical-ARTP and ACC are keen to avoid processing claims with "no causal link".
I hope you find this information useful in your clinical practice
Kind regards
Patrick Dawes