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

• Downloads and resources

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.

• Login to PRODA 

• 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’ 

• Login to PRODA 

• 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. 

People who live in residential aged care homes are exempt from the MyMedicare eligibility requirement for one face-to-face visit for practices in remote locations, or two face-to-face visits for practices in other locations in the previous 24 months recorded with the same practice. They can register for MyMedicare by completing a registration form provided by their GP or through their Medicare Online Account. They don’t need to physically attend a practice to complete their registration. 

Patients can be registered by their GP or general practice for the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive: 

Patients must:  

• permanently live in a residential aged care home, not including respite care   

• register with MyMedicare and link to an eligible practice and responsible GP  

• have the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive indicator selected on their MyMedicare profile by their practice.   

• Login to PRODA 

• 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

• Forecast eligibility for MyMedicare Incentives for an Organisation site/Practice

• Search for and view eligibility assessments for MyMedicare Incentives for an Organisation site/Provider.

Providers

• Forecast eligibility for MyMedicare Incentives as a Provider

• Search for and view eligibility assessments for MyMedicare Incentives as a Provider.

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:

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

• Update 11 (25 October 2024): New GPACI payment resources for practices
• Update 10 (26 September 2024): Chronic disease management | GPACI MBS User Guide
• Update 9 (11 September 2024): Webinar update and Monitoring and tracking spreadsheet
• Update 8 (5 September 2024): Webinar – Changes to chronic disease management items
• Update 7 (30 August 2024): New error causing issues in PRODA
• Update 6 (29 August 2024): New GPACI MBS User Guide
• Update 5 (22 August 2024): Does your practice require assistance?
• Update 4 (8 August 2024): Do you have patients in aged care?
• Update 3 (25 July 2024): Accreditation and exemptions for non-traditional practices
• Update 2 ( 9 July 2024): Do you have patients who are residents of a Residential Aged Care Home?
• Update 1 (3 July 2024): General Practice in Aged Care Incentive program Guidelines