National Certificate of Capacity – what’s it all about?
The National Certificate of Capacity (NCC) is a standardised form to support doctors to provide information on an injured worker or a veteran’s capacity for work and life.
Your doctor is helping test a better computer system for workers' compensation and veterans claims. They feel you would benefit from having a Certificate of Capacity for your claim. So that your doctor can complete this new certificate for you, they need to get your consent.
Your consent is for some of your personal information to be stored in the new computer system during the trial and, if decided by your doctor, electronically shared with your insurer.
What is a National Certificate of Capacity?
The National Certificate of Capacity (NCC) is a standardised form to support doctors to provide information on an injured worker or a veteran's capacity for work and life.
It aims to simplify the process and to give doctors more time to assess patients.
In the future, this will support faster access to health services for injured workers and veterans.
What is the National Certificate of Capacity pilot project?
- The NCC project aims to test the electronic completion of the certificate by the doctor with their patients and submission into a secure computer system.
- The trial to test the Certificate electronically is between Comcare, NT WorkSafe, Department or Veterans' Affairs and digital partner Telstra Health, and aims to replace existing medical certificates.
Why is my doctor asking for my consent?
- Your doctor needs to get your consent before they can save your medical information contained in the Certificate of Capacity into the new computer system
- If you are a Veteran or are located in the Northern Territory:
- If you are Veteran or covered under Northern Territory WorkSafe workers' compensation and you give consent, you are giving permission for your doctor to use the electronic system (run by Telstra Health) to save your personal information into the certificate and generate and print a paper Certificate of Capacity form for you.
- If you are a Commonwealth public servant:
- If you are worker covered under the Comcare workers' compensation scheme and you give consent, you are giving permission for your doctor to use the electronic system (run by Telstra Health) to save your personal information into the certificate and generate and print a paper Certificate of Capacity form for you and forward the electronic information to Comcare for evaluation purposes.
How you can help us test the computer system
- If you wish to provide consent, you need to say "I consent", when asked by your doctor and they will record your permission by ticking the consent box on their computer screen
- When your doctor completes your new certificate, you will be provided a printed copy of your new certificate.
- If you do not provide consent, your doctor will complete a local certificate for you.
What are the benefits of the Certificate?
- The Certificate will decrease red tape and administrative burden for doctors and patients and allow for more time to focus on clinical assessment and diagnosis.
- The Certificate of Capacity will focus on what a patient 'can do' rather than what they 'can't do'.
What will change from the existing certificates?
- There will be limited impact on you
- There will be a request for informed consent to save the data into a secure computer system
- Your data will auto-populate from your doctor's computer software in clinic, saving them time
- The look and feel of the printout will be slightly different to how the local certificate looks today
- You will have more understanding of what your condition allows you to do and will receive a printout of the completed certificate of capacity for your reference.
Consent statements