PIP Digital Health Incentive Update
Following strong AMA advocacy, the Minister for Health, the Hon Sussan Ley MP has agreed to a temporary amendment to the requirements for the Practice Incentives Program (PIP) Digital Health Incentive that came into effect from 1 May 2016. Under the revised Digital Health Incentive, participating practices needed to upload Shared Health Summaries (SHS) for 0.5 per cent of their patients per quarter.
Practices registered for the eHealth Incentive now have until the end of the third quarter (ie January 31 2017) to meet their cumulative upload requirements.
Under the revised Digital Health Incentive all practices previously registered for the former PIP E-Health incentive remained so.
Practices could opt-out of a quarter if it was anticipated they couldn't meet their SHS obligations or withdraw if they no longer wanted to participate.
Registered practices received their first quarter payments in August 2016 on the basis that if they were participating they were meeting the requirements.
This extension provides additional time for practices to meet their obligations under the incentive without loss of payment. Practices that opted-out in the first quarter now have the opportunity to catch up, meet their target SHS uploads, and receive their full incentive.
Practices who do not intend to meet all the requirements of the Digital Health Incentive should withdraw. Recovery action for all incentive payments made to those practices that have not met their targets by the end of quarter three will be undertaken, except where practices experienced real issues outside their control which prevented them from doing so.
Practices experiencing issues outside their control which are preventing them from meeting the requirements of the Digital Health Incentive should contact the Department of Human Services on 1800 222 032 or pip@humanservices.gov.au to discuss.
Training on the eHealth Incentive and online and self-paced training on uploading SHS, along with face-to-face training through Primary Health Networks, is available to assist practices to meet the requirements of the Digital Health Incentive.
For more on the PIP click here.
