Practice Incentives Program

The Practice Incentives Program (PIP) supports practices to deliver quality care, enhance capacity and improve access and outcomes.

 

Quick Guide

The PIP is delivered by the Australian Government Services Australia on behalf of the Department of Health and Aged Care, and has seven incentives under three payment streams.

In addition, the Workforce Incentive Program (WIP) aims to provide targeted financial incentives to encourage doctors to deliver services in rural and remote areas and support general practices to provide multidisciplinary team-based care through the engagement of Nurses, Midwives, Allied Health Professionals and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioners and Health Workers.

For more information please see our Workforce Incentive Program page.
 

Practice Incentives Program overview

What is the Practice Incentive Program?


Practice Incentives Program 

The Practice Incentives Program (PIP) encourages general practices to continue providing quality care, enhance their capacity, and improve access and health outcomes for patients.

Seven separate incentives are available: 

  • After Hours Incentive
  • eHealth Incentive
  • Indigenous Health Incentive 
  • Procedural General Practitioner Payment 
  • Quality Improvement Incentive 
  • Rural Loading Incentive 
  • Teaching Payment 
In order to apply for individual incentives, you must participate in the PIP. You can apply for individual incentives at the same time or after you apply for PIP.
 

Resources and eLearning 

Eligibility for the Practice Incentives Program

Practice Incentives Program eligibility criteria

To be eligible to participate in the PIP, a general practice must meet all of the following requirements:

  • meet the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) definition of a general practice.
  • meet the PIP definition of an open practice (where one or more registered medical practitioners provide face-to-face medical or health services to patients at a physical location).
  • maintain at least $10 million in public liability insurance cover for the main location and each additional practice location (legal liability is not public liability).
  • make sure all general practitioners and nurse practitioners have professional indemnity insurance cover.
  • be accredited, or registered for accreditation, as a general practice against the RACGP Standards for general practices  by an agency approved under the National General Practice Accreditation Scheme. Accreditation must cover the entire quarter the practice is applying in and be maintained thereafter. Practices must be registered for and achieve accreditation against the RACGP Standards within 12 months of joining the PIP Program.
  • You can download a copy (current at September 2019) of the Practice Incentives Program Guidelines by clicking here (please note: this is a Word document).

Resources 

Applying for the Practice Incentives Program


How to Apply for the Practice Incentives Program 

You can apply for the PIP and individual incentives online or using a form. 

Online applications are through  Health Professional Online Services (HPOS) using your Provider Digital Access (PRODA) account. If you don’t have one, register for PRODA online.

For further information on how to apply for PIP click here.​
 

Resources and eLearning

Incentive streams

After Hours Incentive

After Hours Incentive

This incentive is to support general practices to provide their patients with appropriate access to after hours care.

As much as possible, patients should be encouraged and supported to receive care from their regular GP.

However, when a patient’s regular GP or practice is not available, they should be encouraged to access a service provider who has an agreement with the practice to provide care during the after-hours period. This supports safe and high-quality patient care by facilitating continuity of care and timely handover of clinical patient information. The Practice Incentives Program (PIP) After Hours Incentive supports GPs to provide their patients with appropriate access to after-hours care.
 

Resources and eLearning

eHealth Incentive

eHealth Incentive 

The Practice Incentives Program (PIP) eHealth Incentive aims to encourage general practices to keep up to date with the latest developments in digital health and adopt new digital health technology as it becomes available. It aims to help practices improve administration processes and patient care.

To be eligible for the PIP eHealth Incentive, practices must be registered in the PIP and meet each of the five eligibility requirements below.
  1. Integrating healthcare identifiers into electronic practice records
  2. Secure messaging capability 
  3. Data records and clinical coding 
  4. Electronic transfer of prescriptions
  5. My Health Record system 

Resources and eLearning

Indigenous Health Incentive


Indigenous Health Incentive 

The Practice Incentives Program – Indigenous Health Incentive (PIP IHI) provides payments to health services to provide better care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living with a chronic disease.

Chronic disease is responsible for 66% of the health gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous Australians. The PIP IHI seeks to address this gap with better chronic disease management for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.


Resources and eLearning

Procedural General Practitioner Payment


Procedural General Practitioner Payment 

The Procedural General Practitioner Payment is an incentive to encourage general practitioners (GPs) in rural and remote areas to maintain local access to surgical, anaesthetic and obstetric services.

Procedural general practitioners (GPs) provide non-referred procedural services in a hospital theatre, maternity care setting or other appropriately equipped facility, which in urban areas would normally be a specific referral based specialty.  


Resources and eLearning

Quality Improvement Incentive

Quality Improvement Incentive 

The Practice Incentives Program (PIP) Quality Improvement (QI) Incentive is a payment to general practices that participate in quality improvement to improve patient outcomes and deliver best practice care. 

Under the PIP QI Incentive, general practices work with their local Primary Health Network (PHN) to undertake continuous quality improvement activities through the collection and review of practice data on specified Improvement Measures.

A general practice will need to meet two components to qualify for a PIP QI Incentive payment.
  1. Participation in continuous quality improvement activities.
  2. PIP Eligible Data Set
For a comprehensive understanding of PIP QI and how WAPHA can support your practice please refer to the Quality Improvement Toolkit.
 

Resources and eLearning 

Rural Loading Incentive

Rural Loading Incentive 

Practices participating in the PIP, with a main practice located outside capital cities and other major metropolitan centres, are automatically paid a rural loading. The rural loading recognises the difficulties of providing care, often with little professional support, in rural and remote areas.

You don't need to apply for this incentive. Rural loading is automatically applied to the PIP payments of practices in rural and remote areas.

To be eligible for the PIP rural loading, the main practice location must:
  • participate in the PIP, and
  • be located in RRMA 3 –7

Resources and eLearning 

Teaching Payment

Teaching Payment 

Payment to encourage general practices to provide teaching sessions to undergraduate and graduate medical students preparing to enter the Australian medical profession.

For further information on eligibility and claiming teaching sessions please refer to the Teaching Payment guidelines

You don't need to apply for this incentive, but you’ll need to tell notify the number of teaching sessions hosted by your practice to claim the payment.

Resources and eLearning 

Disclaimer: 
Please note the information and resources provided in this toolkit  should be viewed as a general guide only. Practices should implement their own judgement and skill in creating documents and policies which suit their individual practice. It is recommended practices seek professional advice where necessary for their own particular circumstances.
Practice Assist acknowledges and pays respect to the Traditional Owners and Elders of this country and recognises the significant importance of their cultural heritage, values and beliefs and how these contribute to the positive health and wellbeing of the whole community.

Disclaimer
While the Australian Government Department of Health has contributed to the funding of this website, the information on this website does not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government and is not advice that is provided, or information that is endorsed, by the Australian Government. The Australian Government is not responsible in negligence or otherwise for any injury, loss or damage however arising from the use of or reliance on the information provided on this website.