Small-business owner left waiting by $135m billing system

Health Minister Steven Miles has apologised to businesses that have suffered delays because of the new Queensland Health payment system.

HEALTH Minister Steven Miles has apologised to businesses that have suffered delays because of the new Queensland Health payment system.

It comes after The Courier-Mail today revealed Queensland Health had told a small-business owner struggling to be paid for the past four months that her invoices were being lost because

the new system S/4HANA was confused by hyphens.

“To any business that has had a delay in their payment, of course I’m sorry that that’s occurred,” Mr Miles said.

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“This is a very large system and a big change not just for our health workers but also for everybody who provides supplies to our hospitals.”

Health Minister Steven Miles: “To any business that has had a delay in their payment, of course I’m sorry that that’s occurred.”

Despite $3 billion in payments having been processed since the system was deployed in August, Mr Miles conceded there “continues to be occasions” where some businesses had overdue invoices.

However he said the number of phone calls being made to a hotline, that was established specifically to deal with the issues, were reducing.

“I’m advised that the project is within budget and is keeping to the revised time frames as have been announced,” he said.

Asked whether there would be an investigation into the system, the Health Minister said the issues were within the parameters that were expected.

“We are constantly reviewing everything we do to ensure that we do better next time,” he said.

“There is only an awareness of these delays in payment because for the first time we have a statewide digital system for our accounts payable.”

$135M HEALTH BUNGLE: SYSTEM CONFUSED BY HYPHENS

Queensland Health has told a small-business owner struggling to be paid for the past four months her invoices are being lost because its new $135 million hospital payment system is confused by hyphens.

Bridget Cronin’s company Resolve Healthcare makes respiratory devices for Queensland hospitals and has been owed thousands of dollars since new hospital purchasing software S/4HANA rolled out in August.

And despite countless emails and phone calls, eight overdue invoices only started being paid last Friday after she complained to Health Minister Steven Miles and threatened to go to the media and launch QCAT action.

“There has been no accountability,” Ms Cronin said as she called for a proper investigation into ordering and payment problems caused by the bungled rollout of S/4HANA.

Ms Cronin said the latest excuse was that S/4HANA was confused by a hyphen in her invoice and was wrongly trying to process her ABN as the account number.

“It’s a $135 million system that can’t process a hyphen,” she said.

“It beggars belief.”

Resolve Healthcare director Bridget Cronin is still waiting for payment from Queensland Health. Picture: Liam Kidston

Ms Cronin, who was one of scores of workers underpaid during the Queensland Health payroll disaster, said there had been a “callous disregard” for how this latest IT bungle was impacting people.

“It’s a lot for a small business and when a small business loses payments from its main customer, that has a fairly dramatic flow-on effect,” she said, adding one invoice had been overdue by 103 days.

“Queensland Health and the Queensland Government must be held to account for their failure to conduct business ethically and according to their own guidelines.

“It would be interesting to see how Steven Miles would feel if he was still waiting on his pay packet from July.”

Asked about the stress being caused to business owners, Mr Miles said the system continued to improve.

“The hotline to the Accounts Payable Service remains active and the team are committed to processing invoices as quickly as possible,” he said.

“Vendors can be confident that once they make contact with the team, payments will be fast-tracked.”

But Ms Cronin said that was not her experience, and representatives constantly failed to phone her back with answers.

A Queensland Health statement said efforts of vendors in ensuring their invoices complied with the S/4HANA system were appreciated and all businesses would be paid.

QH did not answer questions about how many calls were still being received by its hotline.