Change of practice ownership for Practice Incentives Program (PIP) and Workforce Incentive Program (WIP) - Practice Stream 012-10010030

A practice can update a change of practice ownership using one of the following:

• Health Professional Online Services (HPOS)
• The practice payments will be placed on hold
• The practice must complete the Practice Incentives Change of practice ownership (IP010) form
• The IP010 form

There are 2 types of practice ownership changes.

Partial change of ownership

This is when a sale of the practice has not occurred, or the ownership has not transferred to another person or entity. This type of ownership change is only for adding or removing names to the existing ownership.

A practice does not need to provide supporting documents.

Full change of ownership

This is most commonly a sale of the practice. The ownership legally transfers completely to another person or entity.

A practice must provide:

• Supporting documents
• Accreditation certificate

If the forms need more details, place the practice payments on hold. This will avoid the payments being paid to the wrong owner.

Once the full change of ownership is finalised, request the release of the held payments. Escalate to the Local Peer Support (LPS).

The Process page has more information.

See also Practice accreditation for PIP and WIP - Practice Stream.

A practice will keep the below when changing ownership:

• Practice ID
• SWPE value

The new owner is only entitled to the historical SWPE value if the practice’s existing accreditation is included in the sale/transfer of the practice. This will apply even if the original owner establishes a new practice in the same local area.

If the practice is issued with a new accreditation number, it must re-apply for the relevant program/s and establish a new SWPE value, see Practice application for PIP and WIP. The historical SWPE reference period will begin from the date of sale.

See also:

• Payments for PIP and WIP - Practice Stream
• Practice accreditation for PIP and WIP - Practice Stream

The previous owners(s) will not get any payments after the change of practice ownership is finalised. Payments for the current payment quarter will be paid to the registered owner at the point-in-time date.

If there are held payments, escalate to the LPS to release the held payments.

If the new owner(s) ask for the payments to be given to the old owner(s), escalate to the LPS for assessment.

Do not recover any payments if the old owner(s) think they should receive the payment. The old owner(s) and the new owner(s) must resolve this between themselves.

If the IP010 includes the date of sale and both the old and new owners have signed, the form date is accepted as the date the ownership changed.

There can be numerous reasons why the date on the supporting documents may not align with the date the new ‘owners’ commenced operations.