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Government announces a re-designed General Practice Rural Incentives Program

This week the Assistant Health Minister, Fiona Nash, announced that from 1 July 2015 the General Practice Rural Incentives Program (GPRIP) will move to the new classification system, the Modified Monash Model (MMM), which is widely acknowledged as being a superior system to underpin the allocation of workforce incentives than the ASGC-RA system it replaces.

The AMA advocated strongly for grandfathering arrangements for those GPs that would lose access to incentive payments under the new MMM. The Government has decided against this approach and the Department of Health has advised that all current GPRIP participants will receive a pro-rata payment up to 30 June 2015 if they are eligible. It is anticipated that this pro-rata payment will be made in October 2015. After this, there will be no further payments to doctors in ineligible locations. Program guidelines will be made available soon and the AMA will work through the impact of the Government’s changes with its Rural Medical Committee and Council of General Practice.

As part of the overhaul, the Rural Relocation Incentive Grant (RRIG) ceased on 25 May 2015. If you are a current approved RRIG recipient, you will continue to receive RRIG payments as normal. All complete applications lodged up to 25 May 2015 will be considered.

Further details on changes to GPRIP

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