Residential Aged Care Facilities
The EPC MBS Items for health assessments, which are focused on the community setting, are not available to people receiving care in residential aged care facilities, whatever their level of care.
A residential aged care facility is a facility in which residential care services are provided, as defined in the Aged Care Act 1997, and includes facilities that were formerly known as nursing homes and hostels.
The November 2000 schedule includes new item numbers which enable GPs to contribute to a multidisciplinary care plan and to organise or participate in a multidisciplinary case conference, for people receiving care in residential aged care facilities.
A list of residential Aged Care Facilities can be obtained from the Commonwealth website:
Enhanced Primary Care Item Numbers in Nursing Homes
An article providing a brief overview of the Enhanced Primary Care MBS Items and focusing on the November 2000 changes affecting residents in residential aged care homes, has been published in the Australian Nursing Homes and Extended Care Association's ANHECA Newsletter.
Click here to download this article.
(24KB)
GPDV Residential Aged Care Reference Group - Minutes from Meeting held on 11 September 2001
Click here to download the minutes.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)
The final draft of the guidelines for the Enhanced Primary Care Medicare Benefits Schedule items is now available on the College website:
The website provides access to the standards and guidelines, checklists, practice record proformas, and appendices. Case studies are also available for health assessment and case conferences with the care plan example to follow. This draft will itself be updated, as the desktop version becomes available. Screening questionnaires and instruments are not included in the Internet version, but will be distributed with final hard copy product, in the coming weeks.
Primary Care Partnerships - DHS Update
The Information Management Discussion Paper and Better Access to Services Draft Policy Framework will be released in late July. Consultations with Divisions of General Practice, Primary Care Partnerships and other stakeholders on the contents of both of these papers, including specific forums for Divisions/ General Practitioners, will begin in July and continue through to the end of September. Following this consultation: a final Better Access to Services Policy Framework will be prepared; and draft Information Management Strategic Directions will be developed.
It will be important for people who are involved in the Enhanced Primary Care Program to be kept updated with the developments of Primary Care Partnerships. The funding agreement that GPDV has with the Commonwealth about Enhanced Primary Care is to provide Education and Support and develop community linkages. Enhanced Primary Care new MBS Items spans boundaries and therefore the task of developing community linkages can be quite challenging. Divisions are doing this by working smartly within their program areas for example Mental Health, Diabetes and Youth. Developing these programs so that they have a new MBS Items slant appears to be working well.
Primary Care Partnerships may be another smart avenue for promoting the items and developing protocols for GP integration in Primary Care. Sonya Tremellen is the GPDV Primary Care Consultant and has developed strong links with the GP Integration Branch at DHS. Sonya will provide a regular update to EPC workers regarding the potential linkages with EPC and PCP.
The Primary Health Knowledge Base (PHKB) became "live" and available for Public viewing in May 2000:
The PHKB aims to:
- Promote a better understanding of primary health services among all users, including general practitioners, private sector professionals, and consumers; improve linkages between primary health service providers and between these providers and DHS.
- Promote the professional development of primary health services in Victoria primary health service. Providers are welcome to provide content information for the site.