[ozmidwifery] Fw: Notes from meeting with Contracting Advantage

[Andrea Bilcliff]

To help keep everyone in the loop, here are Joy's notes from the Melbourne meeting yesterday.   Andrea Bilcliff   ----- Original Message ----- From: Joy Johnston Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 9:19 AM Subject: [Midwives_Insurance] Notes from meeting with Contracting Advantage Meeting for midwives with Anne O’Connor of Contracting Advantage (CA) Tuesday 5/9/06  3-5pm At Sunshine Hospital   Midwives present: Robyn Thompson, Helen Sandner, Andrea Bilcliff, Michelle Popple, Bronwyn Harris, Clare Lane, Kayleen Scuderi, Veronica Zeinstra, Joy Johnston   Purpose of meeting: to discuss CA’s offer to provide Professional Indemnity (PI) insurance for self-employed midwives.    For information on CA, go to www.contractingadvantage.com/   CA is a private company, and they have already negotiated a plan for $10 Million cover with their broker, Jardine Lloyd Thomas in Perth.   A midwife who signs up with CA would be charged an annual fee of $500, plus approx 6% of all invoices we create.  The system that they offer provides an accounting system whereby a midwife would give an invoice to a client for her services, and the client would deposit the money into an account belonging to CA. (If cash is paid, the midwife can transfer the money).  CA processes the money into Tax 20%, agency management fee 5%, and insurances approx 1%, and anything else that the midwife wants to have taken out such as superannuation, or income protection.  The remainder is sent the next day to the midwife’s account, and the midwife receives a statement of earnings.  CA’s agency fee provides bookkeeping services for members, including preparation of BAS.   CA has no interest in the fee charged, or the number of births, or any details of how the midwife practises.  They need to be sure that a person is a midwife, and this can be checked via the public register at the Board. (they do the same for tradesmen &c)   CA charges a $2,500 excess on every claim.   There are some technical questions that Robyn put, and these need to be answered formally.  I felt satisfied from my perspective that the plan would provide PI insurance, which is the big need, and the first priority.    There are 2 systems operated by CA.  The first is what I have described above, which would provide for independent midwives such as those of us who are practising now.    The other system is called ODCO, which is a self employed contractor who does most of her/his work for one employer.  CA has an arrangement with the employer, and the employer pays the money earned by the independent contractors in the same way that nurse agencies get paid for supplying staff.  The possibilities here are very big, in that hospitals could use this system for midwives who want to be self employed but want to provide the acute/ birth care in the hospital.  Also this system could replace nurses agencies that are already in operation, if it had an enterprising business person to run it.  This idea has a lot of possibilities.    The next step is to get 200 midwives.  The list that Barb Vernon has generated has 90 names, and we know others who have not yet put their names on the list.  There may not be 200 who are currently earning enough to make the $500 seem reasonable.  Those who are working primarily in hospital jobs, but are willing to attend homebirths occasionally may fee it’s too much.  If you spread it over even 10 births in a year it’s not much, and can be passed on to the client, but if you only have 2 births in the year, that’s a big burden.  However I think once the insurance becomes available the pressure will quickly mount on all midwives to get it, so it won’t be an option any longer.  This possible shortfall in numbers may be something that needs attention – perhaps pressure on health ministers to provide support to get it started initially.   I hope this gives you useful information.  I do think it will open the possibilities of hospital visiting access for independent midwives.      If you know any midwife who is interested but is not on one of these yahoo groups, please forward this message to her/him and ask them to request an invitation to the list.  many thanks Joy Johnston