Press Release

03/50                                                                                                                                                   12/11/03

ADGP and Medibank Private reduce GP red tape

An historic alliance between the Australian Divisions of General Practitioners (ADGP) and Medibank Private will see new active electronic templates made freely available to GPs via the popular desktop software Medical Director program. 

Part of a broader ADGP initiative called Complete Primary Care (CPC), the GP-designed templates for chronic disease management reduce the red tape involved in Medical Benefit Schedule (MBS) items such as Home Medicine Reviews (HMR) and Enhanced Primary Care (EPC) care plans.   

"The templates make it easier to fulfil Health Insurance Commission criteria, meet privacy regulations and dramatically reduce red tape.  They allow me to spend more time with patients and less time filling out forms," said Dr Trina Gregory, one of the GPs who developed the templates.

"My practice has been using the templates since 1999 and getting excellent patient outcomes.  EPC, HMR and the Service Incentive Payments (SIP) are great services once you get over the red tape.  

Using these templates I can do an HMR referral in 3 minutes, instead of the 20 minutes it used to take using paper forms," Dr Gregory said.

ADGP Chair Rob Walters said that over one hundred practices in NSW and Victoria were using the templates and Divisions were finding it difficult to meet the growing demand for installing them on practice computers.    

"Thanks to the generous support of Medibank Private, ADGP is now able to make these templates freely available to practices who wish to use them through the Medical Director clinical software.

The templates will be available from the Medibank Private GP Resource Centre, accessed by using the Medibank Private i icon on the main tool bar of the November update of Medical Director" said Dr Walters.

Medibank Private Managing Director, George Savvides, said the alliance with ADGP was part of Medibank Private?s commitment to supporting GPs in their delivery of health care to the Australian community.

"Medibank Private has set up the GP Resource Centre to support the valuable work of GP.  The templates are a great start to what we hope becomes a useful resource for GPs and a source of improved health outcomes for patients" Mr Savvides said. 

For comment              Dr Rob Walters, ADGP Chair, 0418 127 123

                                    Dr Trina Gregory, Template Designer, 0414 290 477

For information            Michael Janssen, ADGP, 02 6228 0800 or 0409 440 037

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