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• Indigenous Chronic
  Disease Package
• Tackling Chronic Disease
  Risk Factors
  • National action to reduce Indigenous smoking rate
  • Helping Indigenous Australians to reduce their risk of chronic disease
  • Local Indigenous community campaigns to promote better health
• Improving Chronic Disease
  Management and Follow up
  • Subsidising PBS medicine co-payments
  • Higher utilisation costs for MBS and PBS
  • Supporting primary care providers to coordinate chronic disease management
  • Improving Indigenous participation in health care through chronic disease self management
  • Increasing specialist and allied health follow up care
  • Monitoring and evaluation
• Workforce Expansion,
  Training and Support
  • Workforce education and training
  • Expanding the outreach and service capacity of Indigenous health services
  • Engaging Medicare Locals to improve Indigenous Access to mainstream primary care
  • Attracting more people to work in Indigenous Health
  • Clinical practice and decision support

2. How to identify Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander patients

• General Overview

1. Information for General Practitioners on the Indigenous Chronic Disease Package
2. Patient identification
3. Practice Incentives Program (PIP) Indigenous Health Incentive
4. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health assessment items
5. MBS items overview
6. Chronic disease follow-up services
7. Allied health follow-up services
8. Practice nurses/Registered Aboriginal Health Worker follow-up services
9. Pharmaceuticals Benefit Scheme (PBS) Co-payment measure
10. Care Coordination and Supplementary Services Program (CCSS)

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Who is this document for?

• General practices

Background

The initiatives under the Indigenous Chronic Disease Package (ICDP) rely on practices having a system in place to ask all patients whether they are of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin.
Part of accreditation requirements under the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Standards for general practices (3rd Ed) is to correctly and consistently record Aboriginal and/ or Torres Strait Islander status in active patient records.

Why ask?

It is best to ask your patient if they identify themselves as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin or heritage. Identification is based on the individual’s preference and sense of identity, not their physical attributes.

Asking a patient can be done in a few ways. The inquiry can be made by practice staff either verbally or through a written form that patients can complete to provide or update their client information. The GP may also ask as part of routine medical history taking at the patient’s first consultation.

If patients of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin are correctly identified, health care providers will be able to offer services specifically designed to support them such as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health assessments (MBS item 715), follow-up services by a Practice Nurse or registered Aboriginal Health Worker (MBS item 10987) and follow-up services by registered allied health professionals (MBS item 81300 to 81360).

How do I ask?

Suggestion:

Aboriginal people are at risk of certain illnesses more than non-Aboriginal. We want to make sure that we give you thorough and proper care which is tailored to your needs as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person.

You can ask verbally:

‘Are you (is the person) of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin?’

Or you can include the following text in a form when updating client information:

Question

The following question should be asked of all patients to establish their Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status:

‘Are you (is the person) of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin?’

Response options: (For persons of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin, mark both ’yes’ boxes.)

No
Yes, Aboriginal
Yes, Torres Strait Islander
Alternatively, a fourth response category may also be included if this better suits the data collection practices of the agency or establishment concerned:
Yes, both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

More information is available at: http://www.aihw.gov.au/ publications/ihw/29/11052.pdf

Source: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s 2010 National best practice guidelines for collecting Indigenous status in health data sets

All information in this publication is correct as at June 2012Back to Top

Page currency, Latest update: 03 July, 2012

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