Billing

Is there financial compensation for the time needed to inform patients about cancer registration, as well as for reporting the cancer data?

The Cancer Registration Act is designed to minimise the workload for persons or institutions with duty to report. For instance, you may use reports that you create as part of the normal medical documentation (see also Art. 8, paragraph 2, CRO) for data reporting to the cancer registry. The cancer registry will do the work of selecting and coding the relevant information. The report can be transmitted for instance by encrypted e-mail (HIN-mail); also, there is an electronic transmission standard. Your practice’s information system may offer a corresponding interface. Please do not forget to add to your report the insurance number (AHVN13) when available, as well as the date when you informed the patient on the cancer registration (in case this is your responsibility).

In the report on the Cancer Registration Act, submitted in autumn 2014 to the Federal Council for approval along with the draft bill, it was clearly stated that there would be no compensation for the reporting of data. The bill that became the Cancer Registration Act was debated in parliament and the law was enacted in March 2016 without compensation for the reporting of data, as the bill had stipulated. The justification of this can be summed up as follows:

• There is no compensation for the reporting of data because these data routinely become available or are collected as part of the clinical management.
• The National Agency for Cancer Registration (NACR) offers assistance for the unified and standardized collection and transmission of the data (Art. 18, letter a, CRA). This will further reduce the workload for the persons and institutions with duty to report.
• The increasing digital documentation of data in the clinical practice of persons and institutions with duty to report will further facilitate the reporting and transmission of data to the cancer registries.

As your question regarding the item under which you as a doctor can invoice the resulting workload in your medical practice concerns the present/future fees within the ambulatory scale of charges currently under discussion, we recommend that you contact the Swiss Medical Association (FMH). This applies even if you feel that a new fee item is necessary for the CRA-related workload. The FMH, as a collective bargaining party, can bring this request into the fee negotiations if it considers this necessary. If the FMH considers that the current fee items suffice, they will inform you how you can bill for your service.