2 quantitative and 4 qualitative while on DAA treatment but my understanding is that the request needs to specify certain information like who the precribing/authorising physician was rather than just the monitoring one?

With the current political situation regarding pathology tests I suspect both Path labs and Medicare will be making sure they follow the letter of the rules while also point scoring against each other where they can which may mean that patients end up on the paying end of a bill for path requests that would normally just be accepted as “close enough” and paid by Medicare. Maybe their doctor needs to dot an i or cross a t on the request? Maybe it was an error of interpretation or counting by one of the above parties?

Don’t just accept the charges, challenge them and request information on why you didn’t qualify for coverage.

The path form includes this –
“Tests Requested
HepC Viral Load Qualitative; LFT;”
“Clinical Notes
Having DAA Rx for HCV. Auth Dr John W Freeman FRACP”
and
“Special Requests
Bulk Bill:Yes”

Seems pretty clear to me.

Also strange is I’ve had 3 quantitative VL tests in the last 12 months from 3 separate labs with no bill. The first was StVincents internal lab but that shouldn’t make a difference.