MyMedicare

The General Practice in Aged Care Incentive (GPACI) began on 1 July 2024.

GPACI supports older people living in Residential Aged Care Homes (RACHs) to receive planned, quality primary care services from a regular general practice and GP at the patient’s aged care home rather than at the GP practice.

GPACI has replaced the Practice Incentives Program (PIP) General Practitioner (GP) Aged Care Access Incentive (ACAI), which ceased 31 July 2024.

Incentive payments

Payments are made quarterly:

• $300 per patient, per year, paid to the responsible provider
• $130 per patient, per year, paid to the practice

The incentive payments will be quarterly, on top of existing Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS) and Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) rebates for services delivered.

In any given assessment period (quarter), to be eligible to receive incentive payments, providers and practices must meet both eligibility and servicing requirements. To find out more about requirements, payments & eligibility please refer to the Program Guidelines.

General Practice & GPs - Useful Resources

Residential Aged Care Providers, Carers & Families - Useful Resources

Better Access to Mental Health Care - What's Changing

Better Access is a national initiative aimed at improving access to mental health services through Medicare. It enables eligible patients to receive support from GPs, psychologists, and other allied health professionals.

From 1 November 2025, key changes are being introduced to strengthen continuity of care and streamline service delivery:

• Mental Health Treatment Plans (MHTPs) and referrals must be completed by a patient's MyMedicare registered practice or their usual medical practitioner.
• Prescribed Medical Practitioners (PMPs) — non-GP medical professionals recognised by the GPMHSC — can now participate in mental health case conferencing and provide MHTPs
• Several MBS items will be retired, with mental health services transitioning to time-tiered general attendance items
• Telehealth services will require an established clinical relationship, removing previous exemptions
• Referrals made before 1 November 2025 will remain valid until all sessions are used

These changes aim to support a more integrated, stepped-care approach to mental health, ensuring patients receive the rigth care, at the right time, from the right provider.

Participating practices that meet the eligibility criteria can get an additional 12.5% incentive payment on every dollar of MBS benefit earned from eligible services through BBPIP. To participate, practices must be eligible, registered for MyMedicare and have added BBPIP as a program in the Organisation Register. All providers are required to be linked to their BBPIP-registered practice.

Commencing 1st November 2025, Practices participating in BBPIP will receive an additional quarterly 12.5% incentive payment on MBS benefits paid from eligible bulk billed services, split evenly between the GP and the practice.

Participating practices and GPs must bulk bill every eligible service for every Medicare-eligible patient to receive the incentive payment.

As of 30 November 2025, 2902 practices were registered for BBPIP. Participating practices will receive their first incentive payment in January 2026.

New eligibility assessments for the Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program

General practices and providers can now monitor and confirm eligibility for BBPIP incentive payments with new BBPIP eligibility assessments available through Services Australia.

Practices and providers can use:

• Forecast assessments to monitor and confirm eligibility for BBPIP incentive payments and check if there are any issues with registration or eligible item claims.
• Final assessments to confirm if they have met all BBPIP requirements and view the corresponding incentive payment after the end of the quarter.
• BBPIP payment details to view the Services Australia incentive payment for each quarterly assessment period, available after the quarter ends.

If a practice is registered and meets program requirements, its first BBPIP incentive payment will be made in January 2026.

To ensure smooth payment, practices should:

• Check the registration start date.
• Provide bank details for the practice and all linked providers for BBPIP, even if they previously provided bank account details for other programs.
• Keep accreditation up to date.
• Link all providers with separate provider numbers for each site.

For more information visit the BBPIP website.

Forecasting Tool

Forecast assessments support BBPIP registered practices to check eligibility requirements, monitor bulk billing percentages, and estimate practice payments at any point in the quarter.

• This Services Australia resource  (MYMEDM05-MyMedicare - Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program (BBPIP)) includes screenshots of the forecast tool for your reference on slides 5 – 10.
• More information on Services Australia’s forecast assessments is available here: Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program eligibility assessments