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The new General Practice Aged Care Incentive has been established to give aged care residents better access to high quality, continuous, and person-centred primary care.

Practices will be able to register, and providers will be able to participate for the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive through the MyMedicare program from 1 July 2024. 

To receive the incentive of $300 per patient, per year, paid to the responsible provider, and $130 per patient, per year, paid to the practice, GPs must provide an aged care patient with two eligible care planning services over a 12-month period and two eligible regular visits per quarter, each in a separate calendar month, delivering at least eight regular services in a 12-month period. 

Read more about the MyMedicare General Practice Aged Care Incentive (GPACI).

The guidelines provide advice on the service requirements, payments, assessments, and appeals process for the General Practice Aged Care Incentive. 

For more information, please visit the Department of Health and Aged Care website.  

Primary Health Networks (PHNs) have a long-standing history of supporting local general practices and have heard a consistent message from practices across Australia that there is a need for a user guide for Medicare Benefits for the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive (GPACI).

This resource will support General Practices to plan their delivery of care for the Incentive and provide examples of how to use MBS items to meet the requirements of this incentive.

Download the full GPACI MBS User Guide.

GPACI toolkit for primary care practices and general practitioners

Monitoring and tracking spreadsheet  

This tool (XLSX, 110KB) will help you create a register of your patients who are eligible for or participating in the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive (GPACI), and monitor and track whether quarterly and 12-month care planning service requirements have been achieved. This tool is to be used in conjunction with:

You can use the monitoring and tracking to help:

  • create a list of all patients eligible for the incentive to allow you to adopt a targeted approach to MyMedicare registration and patient enrolment

  • document, monitor and track which quarterly and 12-month service requirements have been delivered

  • identify any patient needs and service gaps

  • plan care and predict activity of responsible providers, alternative providers and the care-team.

Webinar: Upcoming changes to chronic disease management items (9 October 2024)

RACGP is holding a webinar about the upcoming changes to chronic disease management items:

  • Wednesday 9 October 2024
  • 7pm – 8pm (AEDT)
  • Online

A revised framework for chronic disease management will commence on 1 November 2024. These changes, which were announced in the 2023-24 Budget, reflect the recommendation of the MBS Review Taskforce.

This webinar will be very timely ahead of the changes commencing (pending passage of legislation) from 1 November.

REGISTER HERE.

All general practices, GPs, Practice Managers and other practice staff are encouraged to attend.

Note: You will be asked for an RACGP ID when registering. RACGP has advised that if you are not a RACGP member, this is not a barrier. Please enter six numbers of your choice in the field and your registration will be accepted.

RACGP GPACI Overview Webinar (13 August 2024)
RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins facilitates a GPACI overview webinar with presenters from the Department of Health and Aged Care, and a GP and Director from Prestantia Health.
Step-by-step guidance: MyMedicare and GPACI program and patient registration
  • Go to services, continue under organisation 
  • Select ‘Organisation Register’ tile 
  • Click on the ‘Associated Sites’ tab, then click on the Site ID number (in blue) 
  • Click on the ‘Provider’ tab, then select ‘Add provider’ 
  • Repeat the below steps for each provider 
  • Enter the Provider Number, then select find 
  • Check the box to agree to the declaration, then select ‘confirm’ 
  • If the address of the provider is different to the site address you may receive a warning message. This is a secondary check to ensure the provider is associated to your site. Check the box to ‘agree’, then select ‘confirm’. 
  • Once all providers are added click ‘Submit’, scroll to the bottom and select ‘save’ 
  • Go to services, continue under organisation 
  • Select ‘Organisation Register’ tile 
  • Click on the ‘Associated Sites’ tab, then click on the Site ID number (in blue) 
  • Go to ‘Program Registration’ tab, use the drop-down to select ‘MyMedicare’, then select ‘add program’ 
  • Program registration details screen will appear, under banking details select ‘add’ 
  • Choose type of account (bank) details, existing will provide bank details already in HPOS, or you can choose to add new bank details. 
  • If you chose ‘enter new account’, under account details enter the bank details in the relevant fields 
  • Check the box to agree to declaration, select confirm, then select ‘save’. 
  • Select ‘submit’, scroll down the page and then select ‘save’. 
  • You now have to wait 24 hours before GPACI will appear as a program option. Proceed to complete steps to register patients to MyMedicare. After 24-hours, to complete GPACI registration go to Register your organisation for MyMedicare GPACI 
  • Select ‘details’ in action column against the MyMedicare program 
  • Select your MyMedicare preference for patient initiated pending registrations, then select save. 
  • Select submit, scroll to the bottom of the page and select ‘save. 
  • Two face to face MBS &/or DVA services with the practice within the previous 24 months on separate days; or 
  • One face to face MBS &/or DVA service with the practice in MMM 6 or 7 locations within the previous 24 months 
  • Child under 18 registered at the same practice 
  • Patient registered at preferred GP’s previous practice 
  • Practice check – one in 24 months with practice 
  • Practice check – two in 24 months with practice 
  • Parent/guardian registered at the same practice 
  • Patient experiencing Family and Domestic Violence 
  • Patient experiencing Homelessness 
  • Go to services, continue under organisation 
  • Select the MyPrograms tile, select the MyMedicare tile, then select Patient List 
  • If you don’t see the MyMedicare tile, ensure steps were completed to; 
  • Activate organisation site record 
  • Add MyMedicare under Program registration 
  • Assign the correct attributes to your profile for the organisation in RPODA 
  • Select ‘Register a patient’, find a patient screen will appear 
  • Select search type, either DVA patient or Medicare patient, then select Medicare Card or DVA file number. (For MyMedicare you can only use Medicare Card or DVA file numbers NOT the patient name and DOB) 
  • Enter the relevant details under Medicare Search, select the declaration tick-box, then select ‘find’ 
  • Results window will appear, select the correct patient, then select next 
  • Check again you have the correct patient, then select ‘Register for MyMedicare’ 
  • Choose ‘select’ in the action column, next to the relevant practice for patient registration. If practice has more than one site, a list of all sites will be available to select. 
  • Select a preferred GP window will appear, choose ‘select’ in the action column next to the relevant preferred GP for the patients registration.  
  • If only one eligible provider at the practice then the provider will automatically be assigned and you will be taken to the next screen. 
  • System will verify if the patient claim history meets one of the eligibibilty requirements 
  • If verified, patient registration confirmation will appear, and patient eligibility reason will appear as ‘Verified by system check’ 
  • If not verified, a message will populate at top of the registration page, you’re required to select an applicable patient eligibility reason to continue, then select next. 
  • Note patient exemption on registration form if paper form was completed 
  • Select demographic option, according to if patient provided additional voluntary questions or not 
  • Select ‘not provided’ if patient didn’t answer any of the questions 
  • Select ‘Demographics’, if patient answered all or some of the question 
  • Select the answer from the drop-down boxes for each question, then select next 
  • If an answer is not provided, select ‘next, don’t use ‘prefer not to answer’ unless the patient has specifically selected that answer. 
  • Select the ‘tick-box’ to accept the declaration, then select ‘confirm’
  • Select view patient list, then select the patient you have just entered and confirm that their registration type is ‘completed’, meaning the details were provided by the registration form and signed by a patient.  
  • If pending, go ahead and select ‘completed, then select Next. 
  • To view all registered patients, go back through the MyMedicare tile and simply click ‘search’ and your current register patients list for MyMedicare will appear 
  • Login to PRODA
  • Go to HPOS, continue under organisation not individual
  • Go to Organisation register tile (green tile) on the HPOS home screen
  • Click on the Organisation name, it will open to ‘Organisation Register – Organisation Record’.
  • Your organisation site and ID should appear, click on the site ID number
  • Navigate to the ‘Programs’ tab
  • Use the drop down and select ‘MyMedicare GP ACI’, then select ‘add new program’.
  • MyMedicare GPACI details screen will appear, review and complete the fields on the Program details screen and select ‘save’
  • Select submit, scroll down and then select ‘save.
  • MyMedicare GPACI should now appear and the banking details will match MyMedicare.

Note: Banking details for the incentive are sourced from the MyMedicare program Registration, any changed to banking details must be made against the MyMedicare program registration ‘details’.

  • Login to PRODA 
  • Go to HPOS continue under organisation not individual 
  • Select the My Programs tile, then select the MyMedicare tile 
  • Select Patient Lists, select the organisation site (if more then one organisation site, if single site just continue to next step) 
  • Use the search fields to search for patient, or cclick the search button without filling in any search criteria and scroll through your list to find the eligible patient 
  • Select ‘add’ in action column, new MyMedicare GPACI details screen will appear 
  • Navigate to the ‘New incentive’ drop down list, select ‘MyMedicare GP ACI’, then select ‘add’. 
  • Under ‘Incentive period’ select ‘Add’ and add a start date (add an end date if applicable), then select ‘Confirm’. 
  • Under responsible provider, select ‘add’ 
  • Select the responsible provider from the dropdown and add ‘start date’ (add end date if applicable) 
  • Select ‘confirm’, then check the box in the declaration section and select ‘save. 
  • Repeat steps 7 – 12 for each eligible MyMedicare GPACI patient. 

New resources have been published on the Services Australia page to support providers and practices to forecast payments and eligibility for the General Practice In Aged Care Incentive. There are separate resources for practices and for providers:

Practices

Providers

You can find all of these infographics on the HPE MyMedicare page.

Many General Practices have been experiencing a new error message that is causing issues in PRODA when attempting to link the provider to a GPACI patient in HPOS.

See below for an example of this error:

PRODA error

The Department of Health and Aged Care (DoHAC) has received confirmation from Services Australia that this is a new error. It has come to their attention through the help desk as well as through Primary Health Networks (PHNs), and they are working with the systems team on a fix.

The fix is expected to go live in December – it cannot happen sooner than that unfortunately.

In the interim, the explanation is:

  • The 0831 warning displays when a provider is not eligible for the full period that the incentive indicator is assigned to the patient. Please note, this is not an error and does not restrict the ability for a practice to add an incentive indicator or assign a responsible provider. 

  • As this is only a warning message, the user can continue by selecting ‘confirm’ again after the message appears to proceed with linking/adding the responsible provider.

  • Operators may also have to select ‘save’ twice.

  • We will be releasing updated wording for the 0831 warning message this week to help alleviate confusion.

  • Any further advice from Services Australia will be circulated once received.

National PHN MyMedicare Implementation Team

Patient information about MyMedicare
MyMedicare GPACI updates

NQPHN will be providing regular updates regarding the MyMedicare General Practice Aged Care Incentive. Below, you can conveniently find links to these updates.

Date Resource
TBC TBC
Does your practice require assistance? Let us know

The General Practice Aged Care Incentive (GPACI) supports general practices to deliver regular, proactive services and care planning to older people living in residential aged care homes (RACHs). ​

This allows patients to get regular services, care planning, and health assessment services in their RACH, from their preferred provider and practice. This helps improve continuity of care and reduces avoidable hospitalisations.

Northern Queensland Primary Health Network (NQPHN) would like to assist your practice in relation to GPACI information and requirements.

Complete our EOI form to assist your practice with GPACI support.

Get in touch

For further support, please contact the Primary Care Engagement Team at pce@nqphn.com.au

04 November 2024