Forms and letters for Practice Incentives Program (PIP) and Workforce Incentive Program (WIP) - Practice Stream 012-10010070

A practice must lodge a current version of all Practice Incentives forms.

The form code and publication date (month year) is in the footer of all Practice Incentives forms.

See the Practice Incentives forms list on the Resources page for a list of current form versions.

Old form versions are not acceptable.

Return old form versions to the practice. See the related Operational Blueprint procedure for the right letter.

If a form was current at the original date of lodgement, and the practice resubmits the same form after the cut-off date for the old form, this is acceptable.

For the teaching payments, if the form was current when the university signed and dated the form, this is acceptable.

See Practice Incentives forms list on the Resources page for a list of old form versions and their cut-off date.

The Resources page has a link to PIP forms.

A practice must submit all pages of the current form, even if it only needs to be partially completed. This ensures the practice changes are updated correctly. Requests including pages from both current and old form versions cannot be accepted, unless received before the old form cut-off date.

For example

A practice submits a Practice Incentives Change of practice details (IP005) form for authorised contact person changes. Only pages 1, 2, 4 and 6 are received. Reject the form.

See also: Authorised contact person changes for PIP and WIP – Practice Stream

All Services Australia forms have an identification code. For the Incentive Programs, it starts with ‘IP’ followed by a form code.

The form code consists of a 3 digit number, followed by a decimal and another 4 digit number.

The first 3 digits refer to the form code. The last 4 digits refer to the form version number. It is based on the publication date of the last form update in the format YYMM.

For example, 001.2002:

• The form code is IP001
• The version number is .2002 (2020 February)

The form code is in the bottom left hand corner on each page of the form.

Health may conduct compliance audits to make sure practices meet the requirements of the PIP, individual incentives and/or WIP – Practice Stream.

Practices must keep all practice documents for at least 6 years from the date the declaration is complete.

Practices can keep their documents in a hard copy or electronic format.

A practice may include an attachment that lists updates for multiple practice locations. This is acceptable for the below forms only:

• Practice Incentives Individual general practitioner, nurse practitioner and health professionals details (IP003)
• Practice Incentives Change of practice details (IP005)
• Practice Incentives Practice closure or withdrawal (IP007)
• Practice Incentives Change of practice ownership (IP010)

The Resources page has a link to the forms.

Each page of the attachment(s) must include:

• all of the individual location specific details that are required on the form. For example, the IP003 form requires the:
• practice ID number
• practice name
• practice address, and
• provider number
• the full name and signature of the same signatory who signed the form.

The required number of right signatories must sign and complete the relevant declaration.

Accept the form when:

• it has a first name initial and the full last name, or
• the first name has been shortened (for example, ‘Alexander’ Smith is ‘Alex’ Smith)

A form is not acceptable when no name or the last name only is given.

See the Resources page for Acceptable Signature Blocks.

Scanned, electronic and stamped signatures

Signatures that are scanned, electronic and stamped are not acceptable. Return any form that has this type of signature.

Exception:

Electronic or stamped signature can be provided for the University certification on the Practice Incentives Program Teaching payment claim (IP006) form.

They are not acceptable for the general practitioner, student or authorised contact person signature blocks on the IP006 form.

The address on all documents must match the address on the practice profile. This includes:

• All practice incentives forms
• Accreditation certificates, and
• Addresses registered to provider numbers

Where the practice address or provider number on the document is:

• Slightly different - escalate to the Local Peer Support (LPS) via the Incentives Escalation Database to see if it can be accepted
• Completely different – return the documents to the practice using the correct letter

PIP/WIP – Practice Stream Online validates all practice addresses to match Australia Post’s data which may result in variances between PIP Online and WIP – Practice Stream Online and a practice’s advised address. The location address is harmonised to the Australia Post address to reduce the risk of overpayment or underpayment to the practice, based on their actual geographical location.

The address advised by the practice can be used in the postal address field, noting that this address will show on all correspondence to the practice.

To avoid possible administrative issues, make practices with such address variances aware that when submitting Practice Incentives forms, the address on the form must match the address we have registered for the practice.

If the practice requests an address variance be corrected, escalate to the LPS via the Incentives Escalation Database for further assessment. All requests are to be submitted by a practice owner or authorised contact in writing.

When keying practice location addresses, the below message will appear if the address is not recognised:
‘2307 – The address entered is not recognised by Australia Post. You should use the Australia Post address for the practice’s physical location. Using the keyed address may result in underpayments or overpayments to the practice. Do you want to continue to use the address entered?’

Confirm the warning message and continue to process the form.

Unless advised in the specific Operational Blueprint procedure, do not:

• write any information on forms
• respond to unanswered questions on a form
• amend information provided on a form

Upload all letters to the practice profile.

Do not upload letters to PaNDA when a work item needs more information.

Only upload letters to PaNDA if:

• the practice does not provide their practice ID
• the practice ID is incorrect
• an IP011 form is rejected or
• an application that is not registered in the system is rejected

Upload associated documents in PIP and WIP – Practice Stream Online advises which system to upload documents to.

See also: Associated documents and comments for PIP and WIP – Practice Stream