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The Retention Payment Category is the index that has been designed to provide an indicator of relative need for retention support across eligible rural and remote locations.
Categories range from A-E, with E indicating the highest need. They are used to apply different qualifying periods and payment rates.
A listing of eligible and ineligible localities in Australia, including the category to which each locality has been assigned, is available at the Department of Health and Ageing website. To go there click here.
Alternatively, you may wish to contact RWAV to obtain information on the categorisation of locations. To email us with a request click here.
Principles for Flexible Payment System
The objective of the Flexible Payments System (FPS) is to contribute to the recognition and retention of General Practitioners in areas targeted under the Rural Retention Program, by providing financial assistance to eligible doctors either not captured by, or not adequately captured by the Central Payments System (CPS). An overarching principle is that, where possible, doctors should be assisted under the CPS rather than the FPS ie. – where a potentially eligible doctor is accruing eligibility under the CPS, the aim is that they will ultimately be included in the CPS if they meet the conditions of eligibility for that system at some future time.
The FPS is specifically designed to assist doctors in three broad categories affected by limitations to the CPS:
- those who would have received a CPS payment but for a period of acceptable leave that has caused them to lose accrued eligibility;
- those who have been providing similar services as have been rewarded under the CPS but have not received a CPS payment because these services have been provided through alternative forms of employment not taken into account in CPS calculations;
- doctors in very isolated communities who have received a part-payment under the CPS which, as a result of low Medicare Benefit Schedule (MBS) billing rates for such services, does not reflect their relevant workload.
As at April 2003, temporary provision is made under the FPS to assist CPS recipient doctors in more remote areas who genuinely experience difficulties/delays in submitting their Medicare claims. (See information detailed under ‘Late Lodgements of Medicare Claims’.)
Eligibility
To be potentially eligible for assistance under the FPS, doctors must meet a specific qualifying period of service in categories of eligible locations – these qualifying periods and categories of eligible locations are the same as those applying under the CPS.
Leave provisions
The leave provisions are designed to assist doctors who would have become eligible for a payment under the CPS but for a period of acceptable leave that has caused them to lose accrued eligibility.
- Acceptable leave includes maternity leave, leave for upskilling, and leave taken due to illness or for provision of non-eligible medical services in eligible locations. Leave for other purposes can also be considered.
- If a doctor has been undertaking eligible services in an eligible location(s) for 10 years, they would be considered eligible for sabbatical leave.
- In normal circumstances, leave permitted under the FPS would be the same as is allowed under the CPS. This normally entails up to six months leave for every eighteen months (when a doctor is qualifying for payments) and up to twelve months leave for every twenty-four months (once qualifying measures have been satisfied). Unlike the CPS, however, the RWAs do have the flexibility to extend leave for periods of 18 months (and beyond) if extenuating circumstances exist.
- Leave of up to 18 months is generally allowed specifically for the purposes of maternity leave or up-skilling and secondary training. This enables doctors who miss out on CPS payments to access their retention payments through the FPS. It should be noted, however, that unless extenuating circumstances exist, periods of leave in excess of eighteen months will result in the need to re-start the qualifying period.
- The maximum length of maternity leave is 2 years. Periods of maternity leave in excess of 2 years will result in the need to re-start the qualifying period.
- Doctors must be back in their practice for a minimum of one active quarter before becoming eligible – that is, they must have been recorded as active in the preceding quarter under the CPS.
- Accrued eligible time continues on recommencement of job. Although periods of absence on leave would not count towards qualifying for a payment, these absences would not result in a doctor losing qualifying time they have already accumulated.
- RWAs would need verification from Medicare Australia that a doctor has been recorded as inactive under the CPS for the period of leave being considered.
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