Changes to primary care fees support quality patient care and team-based approach

The General Practice Services Committee (GPSC) has introduced changes to some physician incentive fees with the goal of better supporting improved access to care and quality of care for patients. The changes were made in response to physician input and to support the goal of expanding and enhancing team-based care.

The changes include:

• GPs will need to submit the GPSC Portal (G14070) or GPSC Locum Portal fee (G14071) at the start of the new year and, effective January 1, 2018, there will be new information required when submitting claims to avoid billing refusal. See here for details. NB: Submitting G14070/71 enables GPs to bill a number of fee codes. See the GPSC Portal Billing Guide here for more details.  
• The GPSC conferencing fees G14015, G14016, G14017 will be discontinued on January 1, 2018. These fees are valid until and including December 31, 2017. The GP Allied Care Provider Conference Fee G14077 that amalgamates these conference fees and removes the barriers associated with them remains available; eligible GPs can bill G14077 for conferencing with at least one other physician or allied care provider. To be eligible for G14077, GPs must have successfully submitted the GPSC Portal (G14070) or the GPSC Locum Portal (G14071) at the beginning of the new calendar year or be registered in a Maternity Network or GP Unassigned Inpatient Network.
• A new GP-Patient Email/Text/Telephone Medical Advice Relay fee (G14078) enables family doctors to delegate communications with patients to a College Certified Allied Care Provider or Medical Office Assistant (MOA), which increases patient access to medical information and enables physicians to spend more time with complex care patients.
• The GPSC Chronic Disease Management incentives (G14050, G14051, G14052, G14053) have been amended to allow a College Certified ACP to provide one of the two required visits, which would be indicated by billing the new Allied Care Provider Visit incentive (G14029). Requests for urgent telephone advice initiated by an ACP are now eligible under the GP with Specialty Training Urgent Telephone Advice fee (G14021).
• A number of fee incentives support the care of complex patients in a family physician's practice. These fall into two categories: incentives to support the time to work with a patient to plan for their care needs and incentives for communications and conferencing. 
• The Unattached Complex/High Needs Patient Attachment Fee (G14074) ended September 30, 2017 after receiving a final extension from the GPSC. It was initially extended to support the duration of A GP for Me and then to further support the transition period following the initiative’s end. Funding for GPSC fee 14074 was from one-time money, and as a result was always intended as a time-limited incentive. This fee was slated to end when the attachment initiative ended on March 31, 2016. 

The GPSC is working on long-term changes to its incentive fees that will support physicians along their patient medical home journey. The Committee will continue to consult and engage with physicians about how the incentive program can best support physicians to care for vulnerable patients. Ultimately, these changes will support physicians to provide patients with the right care in the right place at the right time. 

For information on all the fee changes, please click here.