• Support GPs and Practice Staff to effectively manage a general practice. This includes providing education sessions, resources, practice visits and day-to-day assistance in topics such as Accreditation, Privacy Act, the role of Practice Nurses (nursing competency standards available on request), Blended Payments including Enhanced Primary Careplan (EPC) and Practice Incentive Program (PIP).
• Assist practices with corporate human resource services, recruitment services and GP locum services.
• Support the employment, up-skilling and maintenance of a Practice Nurse. PNMML organises several Practice Nurse education activities throughout each year focusing on topics such as spirometry, asthma and diabetes management, plastering and wound care management.
• Facilitate the improvement of the health and wellbeing of GP members.

• Financial – access to the Practice Incentive Program (PIP) Payments is only available to accredited practices. This also includes access to Service Incentive Payments (SIP), which go to individual GPs.
• Marketability to consumers – being able to market your practice as a quality health care provider through the use of marketing tools (GPA and AGPAL both provide accreditation displays for practices) is of benefit.
• Eligibility for 40 RACGP CPD points (Category 1) Clinical Audit points.
• Educational – the process of accreditation is not about passing or failing; rather it is an education approach assisting in identifying areas of need and raising the standards in your practice.

• Information and education sessions for Practice Staff & Practice Nurses. These assist with the accreditation process by proving the practice’s commitment to ongoing education and quality assurance. We endeavour to make these events free of charge to attendees, via sponsorship from external sources.
• PNMML Patient Feedback Survey & Analysis (available from the Resources Centre under GP & Practice Support Program Resources). This is a vital part of the accreditation process, as many of the standards are assessed through feedback from your patients. Forward the completed required amount of Perth North Metro Medicare Local Patient Feedback Surveys to us and we will collate the results for you. Both GPA and AGPAL have endorsed the survey.
• CPR Refresher courses (requirement of accreditation) are held bi-monthly at PNMML and are offered to all general practice staff.

• Practice Services
• Rights and Needs of Patients
• Safety, Quality Improvement and Education
• Practice Management
• Physical Factors

Each standard is further broken down into specific criterion, which in turn have a number of indicators. Indicators are what are actually assessed or measured by the surveyor. Some indicators have been “flagged” as key indicators, and must be met in order for a criterion (and consequently a standard) to be met.

The Privacy Act
Most people consider their health information to be personal and want their privacy respected. The Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 offers privacy protection and choice to patients. For the most up to date information refer to the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner website.

The Practice Incentives Program (PIP)
The PIP is run by Medicare Australia and provides incentives and payments to General Practices and GPs in order to achieve certain health outcomes.

Who qualifies for PIP?
General Practices who wish to join the PIP will need to be accredited (through GPA or AGPAL) or registered for accreditation when they join the program and be fully accredited within 12 months of joining. Practices will also require Public Liability Insurance and all Medical Practitioners within the Practice need Professional Indemnity Cover.

How much are the PIP and SIP Payments?
PIP payments are mainly dependent on practice size and are made quarterly to the Practice (generally February, May, August and November).

Service Incentive Payments (SIP) are an extra fee to GPs for certain services to individual patients and are also paid quarterly.

Payments are mainly based on Standardised Whole Patient Equivalents (SWPE). The SWPE value for a practice is the sum of the fractions of care it provides to each of its patients, weighted for the age and sex of each patient. The average Full Time Equivalent General Practitioner (FTE GP) sees 1,000 SWPEs annually.

Medicare Australia will automatically calculate the practice's entitlements from the information provided by the practice.