Provision of After Hours Care
After hours care is recognised as an integral part of providing a comprehensive general practice service to patients. Payment through the PIP is intended to help resource a quality after hour’s service, including formalising the arrangements and ensuring the capacity to feed information back to the practice.It is also intended to compensate practices that make themselves available for longer hours, in recognition of the additional pressures this entails. This includes practices that have no choice but to cover their patients themselves (such as rural practices).
For the purposes of the PIP, after hours refers to any time outside 8am to 6pm weekdays and 8am to 12noon on Saturday. To receive any after hours payments a practice must ensure its patients have access to out of hours visits (at home, in a residential aged care facility or in a hospital), where necessary and appropriate through the arrangements outlines in the PIP application form.
Practices can qualify for any or all of the following tiers:
- Tier 1 (ensure coverage):
The practice ensures that patients have access to 24-hour care as outlined on the application form including access to out of hour’s visits where appropriate. - Tier 2 (provide at least 15 hours per week):
The practice qualifies for Tier 1 and on average; the practice covers at least 15 hours per week of its after hour’s arrangements from within the practice. - Tier 3 (provide all coverage):
The practice provides 24-hour coverage seven days a week from within the practice.
| Activity | Tier 1: Basic | Tier 2: Enhanced |
| P.I.P. | $4.00 ( per SWPE) |
$3.00 (per SWPE) |
| Notes |
Payment is made to practices that maintain electronic patient records, which include clinical data on allergies/sensitivities for the majority of active patients. In addition, the practice implements appropriate information security measures (e.g. virus protection, firewall, backup and recovery, access control and practice procedures/processes to support/maintain appropriate information security). The practice also uses appropriate security (e.g. encryption systems) when patient information and/or clinical data are transferred electronically. | The practice qualifies for Tier 1 and uses electronic patient records to record and store clinical information on patients, including current and past major diagnoses and current medications for the majority of active patients. |