You can charge for travel by adding a travel fee to your Fees List. Once a fee has been added to your Fees List, you can add it to any invoice, including invoices that already have a fee for service. This allows you to add travel fees as a new line to any existing invoice.
Depending on whether you want to charge a flat travel fee or a dynamic fee based on time or distance, there are a number of ways you can set this up.
Tip
When creating a travel fee, you can set the fee category to Travel. This will appear on your finance reports and can be useful for your records.
Halaxy features a number of pre-built travel fees that you can import from our database, including travel fees for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA), and various traffic and workers' compensation schemes in different states. You may be able to claim a rebate for these fees.
Tip
For travel related to DVA claims, you should import the DVA fee titled "KM travelled" from Halaxy's database. When you use this fee, Halaxy will automatically deduct 10 kilometres from the DVA claim (Medicare does not pay a rebate for the first 10 kilometres for DVA travel).
To add/import a travel fee to your Fees List:
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Click Finances > Fees.
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Click New Fee at the top-right of the page.
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The New Fee page appears. In the Lookup field, type part of the fee name or item code to see if the fee is in Halaxy's database for your profession. If so, select the fee from the drop-down list to automatically import the fee details. You can then click Save Fee. If the fee is not in the list, you will have to complete the rest of the fields manually - proceed to step 4.
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If you need to create your own fee rather than importing one from Halaxy's database, you will need to complete the fields below:
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Funder: If this fee is non-claimable, the Funder should be set to "Private". If this fee is claimable from a funder (e.g. the Department of Veterans Affairs or the National Disability Insurance Scheme), type part of the funder name and select it from the list, or select the option to add what you have typed as a new funder.
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Fee Name: Give the fee a name e.g. "Travel 20 - 30 KM Away" or "Kilometres travelled".
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Item Number: The item number will be the reference linked to the fee in the invoice. This is used by the funder to identify the fee in their fee schedule or schedule of benefits.
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Fee Type: Select the type of fee this will be (i.e. Appointment, Item or Pro Rata). Generally, the best option for travel fees is Item - this allows you to set a quantity based on time or distance travelled. For example, if you charge by the kilometre, you can set the quantity to 20 to charge for 20 kilometres travelled. You can do the same for time (e.g. a fee per minute or per 20-minute block).
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Category: Select Travel as the fee category. This will be beneficial when you are conducting financial reports etc.
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Pricing: Click the Edit (pencil) icon in the Pricing section to set the fee amount, tax rule and rebate amount. NOTE: If the fee is not claimable, leave the rebate amount at $0.00. If this fee is claimable, you can add in the rebate amount here.
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Fee Visibility: Set the fee to Hidden, as it will not be bookable online for patients.
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Fee Details: This section can remain blank, as this fee will not be used for online bookings.
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RESULT: The fee is now added to your Fees List and can be added to any invoice or appointment.
Once a fee is in your Fees List, you can add it to any appointment or invoice as a new invoice line.
To add a travel fee to an invoice:
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Navigate to the invoice.
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In the Fees & Charges section of the invoice, click Add Another Fee.
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The "Add Invoice Line" pop-up will appear. In the Fee drop-down menu, select the travel fee.
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In the Quantity field, type in the appropriate quantity. Depending on how you have set up the fee, this may be kilometres, minutes or some other unit of time/distance.
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Click Save.
RESULT: The fee has now been added to the invoice and will be billed according to the quantity you set.
NDIS travel fees are charged by the minute, based on the same hourly rate as the service you are providing and agreed with by the participant for the primary support (or a lower hourly rate for travel if agreed with by the participant for the primary support).
Because of this, the Amount field for NDIS travel fees in Halaxy's database is set to $0.00; you will need to set the amount on an invoice-by-invoice basis or create multiple travel fees with different amounts based on the different services you charge. The easiest way to do this is to create a fee with the type set to "Item", charged by the minute - this will allow you to easily enter the time spent traveling as a quantity.
To claim for travel expenses, you must show the travel fee as a separate line item on the invoice used to bill for the service.
To claim for travel expenses, you must submit the claim for travel along with the claim for the service you provided. Medicare and DVA will not accept a claim for travel expenses on their own.
If you try to submit a claim for travel expenses without an associated service, you will receive error 238 on the Medicare report.
I have an appointment for a DVA client. The appointment is 10 kilometres from the office. Can I claim this expense?
No, you will not be able to claim this travel expense. Medicare does not pay a rebate for the first 10 kilometres for DVA travel.
If you travelled more than 10 kilometres, Medicare will pay a reduced benefit for the claim, deducting the first 10 kilometres of travel (denoted by code 298 on the Medicare report). If you import the DVA fee titled "KM Travelled" from Halaxy's database, Halaxy will automatically deduct this from your claim.
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