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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

8. Follow-up services provided by a Practice Nurse or registered Aboriginal Health Worker (MBS item 10987)¹

• 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
• Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services and other Indigenous Health Services

Item	Description	Fee*	Benefit	Frequency
10987	Follow-up service provided by a Practice Nurse or registered Aboriginal Health Worker, on behalf of a medical practitioner, for an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander who has received a health assessment (item 10987)	$23.10	100%	Maximum 10 services per year

* Current as at 1 Nov 2010.

Item 10987 will assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients who have received a health check which has identified a need for follow-up services which can be provided by a Practice Nurse or registered Aboriginal Health Worker between further consultations with the patient’s GP.

Patient eligibility

A person who is of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander descent may be referred by their GP for allied health services under items 81300 to 81360 when the GP has undertaken a health assessment and identified a need for follow-up allied health services.

Items 81300 to 81360 are available in addition to items 10950 to 10970, and they provide an alternative referral pathway for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people to access allied health services.

Patient eligibility

Item 10987 may be accessed by an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander patient who has received a health assessment, for example, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Health Check, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Adult Health Check, and health assessments for people of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent aged 55 years or older (all services provided under MBS item 715).

Eligible practitioners

Item 10987 may be claimed by a medical practitioner, where a follow-up service is provided by a Practice Nurse or registered Aboriginal Health Worker on behalf of that medical practitioner for an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person who has received a health assessment.

A Practice Nurse means a registered or enrolled Nurse or Nurse Practitioner who is employed, or whose services are otherwise retained, by a general practice.

A registered Aboriginal Health Worker means a person in the Northern Territory who is registered as an Aboriginal Health Worker under the Health Practitioners Act 2004 (NT), who is employed or retained by a general practice, or by a health service that has an exemption to claim Medicare benefits under sub-section 19(2) of the Health Insurance Act 1973.

Item description

Item 10987 may be used to provide:

• examinations/interventions as indicated by the health assessment;
• education regarding medication compliance and associated monitoring;
• checks on clinical progress and service access;
• education, monitoring and counselling activities and lifestyle advice;
• taking a medical history; and
• prevention advice for chronic conditions, and associated follow-up.

To claim this item, each of the following criteria must be met:

• the service is provided on behalf of and under the supervision of a medical practitioner;
• the person is not an admitted patient of a hospital; and
• the service is consistent with the needs identified through the health assessment.

Restrictions

Item 10987 does not apply for services that are provided by any other Australian Government or state funded services. However, where an exemption under subsection 19(2) of the Health Insurance Act 1973 has been granted to an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service or state/territory government health clinic, item 10987 can be claimed for services provided by Practice Nurses or registered Aboriginal Health Workers salaried or contracted to the service or health clinic. All requirements of the item must be met.

1. Department of Health and Ageing. MBS Online. Canberra: DOHA; 2010. Available at: www.health.gov.au/mbsonline

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Page currency, Latest update: 09 December, 2010

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