The Comprehensive Medical Assessment (CMA) is a new MBS Item Number released under the Strengthening Medicare Initiative.  The item number 712 was implemented on Thursday 1 July 2004.  The CMA is being implemented in conjunction with the Aged Care GP Panels Initiative. 

Both the CMA and the GP Panels Initiative aims to improve access to medical care and improve the quality of care provided to residents of aged care facilities by enabling doctors to better assess the residents health care needs and provide pertinent information for their care planning and medication management.  The CMA is applicable to new and existing residents of aged care facilities. 

A CMA should be completed for new residents (preferably) within six weeks of admission to a residential care facility.  A CMA should be undertaken for existing residents on an 'as required' basis, that is, due to significant change in medical condition, physical and / or psychological function.  However, it is important to note that Medicare Benefits will be payable for a maximum of one CMA per resident in any 12 month period. 

The CMA is a GP service and for this reason the MBS Item Descriptor does not articulate the role that a General / Practice Nurse may have in the undertaking of a CMA.  However, there is a role for General / Practice Nurses and is articulated in the Q&A information located on the Department of Health and Ageing website http://www.seniors.gov.au./internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/Content/health-medicare-health_pro-gp-cmarach.htm. Information obtained from the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing states that:
"The role for the practice nurse when assisting the doctor in doing a CMA could be in liaising with the home and gathering the relevant information the home has collected together for the doctor to view and utilise within the consultation.  However, the doctor is responsible for assessing the patient and this includes making any assessments that the home has not done or that the doctor would like to repeat."

ADGP under the Complete Primary Care (CPC) initiative has designed a proforma for use by General Practitioners when undertaking a CMA. There is a paper version and an interactive version.  The interactive version has now been installed in the suite of templates on the Medibank Private portal in the August update of Medical Director. 

Feedback on template improvement is welcome and should be directed to ADGP Principal Adviser Debbie Bampton at dbampton@adgp.com.au.

If you have developed a CMA template and would like to share it with other Divisions and GPs please forward to ADGP for inclusion on this website.

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To view and download a paper version of the CMA proforma click here.

To view the interactive proforma of the CMA Form click here.

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The Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing have developed the following resources for the CMA.

CMA service description flowchart

CMA Sample Form

CMA Fact Sheet