The Medicare PIP Digital Health incentive aims to encourage health services to adopt the latest developments in Digital Health with the view to helping services improve administration processes and patient care and outcomes. Eligible health services can receive a maximum payment of $12,500 per quarter, based on $6.50 per Standardised Whole Patient Equivalent [SWPE] per year.
To be eligible for the PIP Digital Health Incentive, health services must meet all 5 requirements following:
Requirement 1- Integrating Healthcare Identifiers into Electronic Practice Records:
The practice must:
- Apply to Human Services to obtain a Healthcare Provider Identifier–Organisation (HPI–O) for the practice, and store the HPI–O in a compliant clinical software system;
- Ensure that each general practitioner within the practice has their Healthcare Provider Identifier–Individual (HPI–I) stored in a compliant clinical software system; and
- Use a compliant clinical software system to access, retrieve and store verified Individual Healthcare Identifiers (IHI) for presenting patients.
Requirement 2- Secure Messaging Capability
The practice must have a standards-compliant secure messaging capability to electronically transmit and receive clinical messages to and from other healthcare providers, use it where feasible, and have a written policy to encourage its use in place.
Requirement 3- Data Records and Clinical Coding
Practices must ensure that where clinically relevant, they are working towards recording the majority of diagnoses for active patients electronically, using a medical vocabulary that can be mapped against a nationally recognised disease classification or terminology system. Practices must provide a written policy to this effect to all GPs within the practice.
Requirement 4- Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions
The practice must ensure that the majority of their prescriptions are sent electronically to a Prescription Exchange Service (PES).
Requirement 5- My Health Record system
The practice must:
- Use compliant software for accessing the My Health Record system, and creating and posting shared health summaries and event summaries;
- Apply to participate in the My Health Record system upon obtaining a HPI–O; and
- Upload a shared health summary for a minimum of 0.5% of the practice’s standardised whole patient equivalent (SWPE) count of patients per PIP payment quarter.