Appeal court backs PSR’s demand for GP to hand over 25 years of patient records
The Professional Services Review has successfully appealed a court ruling that stopped it demanding a GP hand over up to 25 years of medical records.
The new decision reverses Dr Matthew Yoong’s 2023 legal victory over the Professional Services Review (PSR), which had tried to disqualify the GP from Medicare for not submitting complete records for 76 patients.
At the time, the Federal Court of Australia said the PSR could request documents from outside the period of the Medicare claims it was reviewing. However, it said the PSR had not met its legal requirement to explain why these documents were relevant in Dr Yoong’s case.
The PSR appealed the decision to the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia, where it argued that the original judge had misinterpreted the Health Insurance Act.
