This appeared last week:
'We're becoming unviable,' says GP hit with $22k e-PIP repayment
20 December 2017
General practice has lost a total of almost $11 million in e-health cash incentives since new requirements were introduced in 2016, the Department of Health has revealed.
The Practice Incentive Program (PIP) payments were linked to uploading My Health Record shared health summaries for 0.5% of patients every quarter - starting from the quarter ending July 2016.
However, health department figures show that of the 5000 practices registered for the so-called e-PIP, about 1,440 were asked to repay the funds in April, after falling short of the My Health Record requirements.
Although some practices appealed, about 1,170 had repaid an average of $9000 each by the end of November this year.
Melbourne GP Dr Igor Jakubowicz (pictured) told Australian Doctor his practice was asked to repay more than $22,000.
�We�re becoming unviable,� he said.
�Basically, the partner doctors have to bear it. Between this and the freeze we may just retire.�
The practice was one of about 400 that appealed against having to repay the incentives.
�It wasn�t for a lack of trying,� he said.
�Part of it was the IT provider and we couldn�t do much about that, even though it was an approved provider.�
According to the health department, the large number of appeals led to delays of several months, with practices waiting to hear if they would lose money or not.
After receiving an initial letter in April, Dr Jakubowicz waited more than six months before he was told practice�s appeal had been rejected.
Dr Jakubowicz said he had an interest in IT and wanted the My Health Record scheme to succeed but could not overcome the technical issues.
�There�s nine buttons to press and it can take two to three minutes to register patients, then sometimes it doesn�t go through.
Read all the successful and not successful appeal reasons in the rest of the article:
Love the comment about the nine buttons to press to register a patient.
It is amazing that 1/3 or so of GPs could not reach the required (very low) number of Shared Health Summary uploads.
Speaks volumes why we are being all forced to opt-out.
Looks like just more good money after bad is being spent and wasted to me.
David.
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