09 July 2024
On Monday 1 July 2024, the new General Practice in Aged Care Incentive commenced, providing incentive payments to general practices and general practitioners for delivering regular visits and care planning to permanent residents living in residential aged care. This may result in some changes in the way that general practitioners deliver services to residents living in your residential aged care home. As part of this incentive, EMPHN has a role in helping your residential aged care home improve access to visiting general practices.
The new incentive aims to strengthen and formalise relationships between residents and their primary care provider, or general practice. Voluntary patient registration with a practice (known as MyMedicare) and the new incentive supports Residential Aged Care Homes to meet Standard 3 – Personal and Clinical Care of the current Aged Care Quality Standards.
Residential aged care home staff can help residents and their families to benefit from this new initiative and find out more about how to register with MyMedicare.
The new General Practice in Aged Care Incentive provides an opportunity to strengthen relationships and care coordination between visiting general practices and your residential aged care home. You might like to consider the following questions with general practices that visit your facility:
- Is your practice able to accept new patients at our residential aged care home?
- Is your practice participating in the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive?
- If so, do you have a process we can use to help residents to register with MyMedicare with your practice?
- Are you planning any changes to how your practice delivers visiting services and if so, is there anything we can do to coordinate to help enable these changes?
- Are there any improvements we can make to how we work together? For example
- scheduling set days and times for regular visits,
- communication before, during and after visits,
- processes such as planning rounds with our care staff to help coordinate care when doctors are visiting.
- Are there ways that we can improve communication and care coordination? For example
- Involvement in care planning and reviews of care plans with the visiting general practice
- Can we improve communication if/when a resident deteriorates, needs urgent acute care (e.g. ambulance or hospital), or has a change in their clinical needs?
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive are now available for Aged Care Providers, GP’s and practices, and consumers and carers.
If you have any questions or are experiencing issues accessing general practices to visit your residential aged care home, please contact us digtalhealth@emphn.org.au.
Other useful links and information: