New aged care incentive ‘less viable’ for smaller GP practices: first evaluation

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An early evaluation of the new aged care incentive seems to confirm fears that many GPs have ended up financially worse off.

The new incentive started in July 2024, paying $300 to the GP and $130 to the practice per patient for completing eight visits and two care planning services in a year.

The AMA warned that GPs would likely need to treat 34 patients a year to earn $10,000 — the maximum payment under the old incentive — with the GPs who saw fewer patients predicting they would be worse off.

An initial evaluation report by consultancy firm Nous, covering the incentive’s first six months, was published in July.

It said the new incentive was likely “less viable” for smaller practices and GPs with fewer aged care patients compared with larger practices.

“It comes through loud and clear in this report that providers are dissatisfied with the program, and that reflects what our members are telling us,” AMA president and GP Dr Danielle McMullen told AusDoc.

“They say they are worse off, the program is administratively burdensome and does not match clinical workflows and the financial incentive does not suit the objectives.”

She said the AMA had urged the Department of Health, Disability and Aged Care to listen to GPs’ feedback.

“We feel we could have predicted a lot of this.”

The Federal Government had estimated that around 200,000 aged care residents would be eligible for the incentive.

The report said the incentive had a “strong initial uptake”, enrolling more than 82,000 residents.

It also said the relevant care planning services — including case conferences, health assessments and medication reviews — had increased 25% compared with previous years.

The department told AusDoc that 61,000 eligible care planning services had taken place in the last three months of 2024, compared with 50,000 in the same period of 2023 and 42,000 back in 2021.

“These early data are an indicator for the impact of the incentive, but it is too early to ascribe these to the incentive,” a spokesperson said.

Dr McMullen said more care planning was one of the incentive’s goals but it remained “early days”.

“Whether this reaps clinical benefit for patients is yet to be seen.”

To improve the incentive, the report recommended reducing the admin burden, a major grievance among GPs.

It also suggested the department consider “non-financial drivers”, such as professional recognition programs, to increase GP interest.

Dr McMullen said the AMA’s Council of General Practice was developing further suggestions for the department.

“We recognise that, for people doing largely just aged care, this model at scale could be better than the old model, but you have got to think about what the objectives are,” she said.

“If the goal, as the department has said, is to have continuity and the usual GP follow a few of their patients into aged care, then this funding model does not support that as well.

“Trying to have a one-size-fits-all is proving challenging.”