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PIP Quality Improvement Incentive start date pushed back

AMA members are advised that the start date of the Practice Incentives Program (PIP) Quality Improvement Incentive (QII), which was due to start 1 May, has been pushed back until 1 August 2019. The new start date is to facilitate sector readiness for the new incentive. The five proposed incentives that the QII will replace will now stay in place until 31 July 2019. These incentives are:

  • Asthma Incentive
  • Quality Prescribing Incentive
  • Cervical Screening Incentive
  • Diabetes Incentive
  • General Practitioner Aged Care Access Incentive

The six PIP Incentives that are expected to remain unchanged are:

  • eHealth Incentive
  • After Hours Incentive
  • Rural Loading Incentive
  • Teaching Payment
  • Indigenous Health Incentive
  • Procedural General Practitioner Payment

The QII is intended to support practices to utilise the information they have about their own communities to identify the needs of their patients and develop innovative strategies to drive improvement. 

Practices will be required to share a minimum set of aggregated data with their local PHN, such as the number of patients who are diabetic, the percent who smoke, the cardiovascular risk and weight profile. This information will be collated at the local level by the PHNs to assist in supporting improvement and understanding health needs. There is no requirement for individual patient data, and any measures from an individual practice will not be available to the Department of Health. 

The AMA is working with other key stakeholders on the Practice Incentives Program Advisory Group (PIPAG) with the Department of Health to ensure that Australia does not follow other countries in introducing a 'pay for performance' program.

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