Earlier this year I wrote an opinion piece on the issue of non-compliant Medicare billing.

I approached the problem from a sociological perspective.

It was published in the Australian Health Review under the title, ‘Lessons from the ‘legitimate’ misuse of Medicare Benefits Schedule item 45503’.

It began with a personal anecdote from 2015 in which I recounted a fellow cardiac surgeon greeting a colleague at a medical conference by saying: “I have a present for you — 45503.”