Education guide - Chronic disease GP Management Plans and Team Care Arrangements
Information for medical practitioners about GP Management Plans (GPMPs), Medicare item 229 or 721 and Team Care Arrangements (TCAs), Medicare item 230 or 723.
Make sure you read the relevant Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) item descriptions and explanatory notes on MBS Online.
GP Management Plans and Team Care Arrangements
If a patient has a chronic medical condition, they may be eligible for services under a General Practitioner Management Plan (GPMP) or Team Care Arrangement (TCA). Chronic medical conditions are those that have been, or are likely to be, present for at least 6 months. Examples include:
- asthma
- cancer
- cardiovascular disease
- diabetes
- kidney disease
- musculoskeletal conditions
- stroke.
GPMPs and TCAs help practitioners coordinate the care of people with chronic conditions. They also help to reduce the need for ad hoc consultations. Care plans are useful for recording comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information about a patient's condition and treatment.
Developing a care plan can also help encourage your patient to take responsibility for their care. Patients may be able to identify things they could do to achieve the goals of the treatment.
Who should prepare GPMPs and TCAs
Practitioners who can claim for GPMPs and TCAs include:
- general practitioners (GPs)
- non-vocationally recognised medical practitioners (non-VR MPs).
The patient's usual medical practitioner should provide GPMP and TCAs items. ‘Usual medical practitioner’ means:
- the medical practitioner or a medical practitioner in the same practice who has provided the majority of services to the patient in the past 12 months
- the medical practitioner who is likely to provide the majority of services in the following 12 months.
How to prepare GPMPs and TCAs
Preparing GPMP items 229 or 721
When preparing a GPMP you should:
- explain the steps involved in preparing the plan to your patient, and
- record their agreement to proceed.
Then you should write a plan that describes:
- the patient's healthcare needs, health problems and relevant conditions
- management goals and actions for your patient
- treatment and services that your patient will need
- arrangements for providing the treatment and services
- arrangements to review the plan.
Once your patient agrees on their GPMP, offer them a copy and add a copy to their medical record.
Preparing TCAs items 230 or 723
You must consult with a multidisciplinary team when developing TCAs. A multidisciplinary team includes:
- the patient’s eligible practitioner
- at least 2 other collaborating health or care providers, 1 of whom may be another medical practitioner.
Each person in the team must be providing a different type of ongoing treatment or service. They do not need to be Medicare eligible providers.
A patient's informal or family carer does not count as a healthcare provider.
When preparing the TCAs:
- discuss the steps involved in developing the TCAs with your patient
- record whether your patient’s agrees to proceed
- discuss the multidisciplinary team who will contribute to the TCAs and provide treatments and services.
When documenting the TCAs, include:
- treatment and service goals for the patient
- treatment and services that collaborating providers have agreed to give
- actions the patient needs to take
- review dates.
Once you have completed the TCAs document:
- offer a copy of it to the patient
- give copies of the relevant parts of the document to the collaborating providers
- add a copy of the document to the patient's medical record.
Determining patient eligibility for GPMPs and TCAs
To be eligible for a GPMP, the patient must have a chronic or terminal medical condition.
To be eligible for TCAs, the patient must have a chronic or terminal medical condition that requires ongoing treatment from a multidisciplinary team.
While many patients will be eligible for both a GPMP and TCAs, practitioners can provide the services independently. Practitioners don’t have to coordinate TCAs after preparing a GPMP or prepare a GPMP before coordinating TCAs.
GPMP items 229 or 721 and TCAs items 230 or 723 are available to both:
- patients in the community
- private in-patients of a hospital who are being discharged, including private in-patients who are residents of aged care facilities.
Items 229, 230, 721 and 723 are not available to either:
- public in-patients of a hospital
- care recipients in a residential aged care facility.
Items 232 or 731 are available to care recipients in a residential aged care facility
Checking patient eligibility
You can check a patient’s eligibility by:
- using the MBS Online Items Checker in HPOS to
- view and check patient eligibility based on their MBS history
- check your own eligibility for claiming MBS items
- check claiming conditions for MBS items
- calling us.
Claiming Chronic Disease Management items
Chronic Disease Management item descriptions and how frequently you can claim
The table below provides Chronic Disease Management (CDM) service descriptions, item numbers and information about how claiming frequency.
Service description | Item number | Claiming frequency |
---|---|---|
Preparation of a GPMP | 229, 721 | Once every 12 months |
Coordination of the development of TCAs | 230, 723 | Once every 12 months |
Contribution to a Multidisciplinary Care Plan or to a review for a patient who isn’t in a residential aged care facility | 231, 729 | Once every 3 months |
Contribution to an Multidisciplinary Care Plan or to a review for a resident in an aged care facility | 232, 731 | Once every 3 months |
Review of either a GPMP or TCAs | 233, 732 | Once every 3 months |
You can provide CDM services more frequently in exceptional circumstances. For example, when there is a significant change in a patient's condition, you may need to provide a service more than once. For billing purposes, include the reason on the patient’s account or in the claim.
MBS review items 233 or 732 are for reviewing GPMPs and TCAs. Practitioners can claim items 233 or 732 twice on the same day. One claim will be for a review of a GPMP and one for a review of TCAs. They will need to fill in the MBS item descriptions and explanatory notes correctly.
We suggest that practices call and encourage patients to attend an appointment to review their care plan.
CDM items claiming restrictions
Medical practitioners shouldn’t bill CDM items and attendance items for the same patient on the same day. The table below shows which attendance and CDM items practitioners shouldn’t claim together.
This restriction prevent co-claiming these attendance items | with these CDM items |
---|---|
3, 4, 23, 24, 36, 37, 44, 47, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 65, 179, 181, 185, 187, 189, 191, 203, 206, 585, 588, 591, 594, 599, 600, 733, 737, 741, 745, 761, 763, 766, 769, 5000, 5003, 5020, 5023, 5040, 5043, 5060, 5063, 5200, 5203, 5207, 5208, 5220, 5223, 5227, 5228 |
229, 230, 233, 721, 723, 732 |
If a practitioner claims both items for the same patient on the same day, they will only receive benefits for the CDM item.
If patients need to see a different practitioner on the same day, we will pay benefits for both consultations.
Eligible practitioners referring for allied health services
Eligible practitioners may decide that a patient would benefit from allied health services.
Allied health professionals must write a report for the referring practitioner at least after the first and last individual service. They can write more reports if necessary.
Allied health professionals have to write a report for the referring practitioner after the last group service.
Patients with complex care needs
Following a GPMP and TCAs, eligible practitioners can refer patients with complex care needs for up to 5 individual services per calendar year. These services can include individual allied health services, items 10950-10970.
Patients with type 2 diabetes
Following a GPMP, eligible practitioners can refer patients with type 2 diabetes for group services including:
- 1 assessment for group services per calendar year - item 81100, 81110 or 81120
- up to 8 group allied health services per calendar year - item 81105, 81115 or 81125.
Patients with type 2 diabetes can access these services and the 5 individual allied health services each calendar year.
More information
Read more about:
- referred allied health services
- the Schedule at MBS Online
- education services for health professionals
- resources on chronic disease management
- our website disclaimer.
Contact us for MBS item interpretation.
Provide your feedback on our education resources.
Page last updated: 1 November 2019
This information was printed 14 January 2021 from https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/organisations/health-professionals/topics/education-guide-chronic-disease-gp-management-plans-and-team-care-arrangements/33191. It may not include all of the relevant information on this topic. Please consider any relevant site notices at https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/site-notices when using this material.