Workforce Incentive Program (WIP) – Practice Stream

Workforce Incentive Program (WIP) – Practice Stream

The WIP-Practice Stream encourages multidisciplinary and team-based models of care. The program provides financial incentives to general practices to engage a range of health professionals, including:

• nurses
• midwives
• allied health professionals
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers and health practitioners.

The WIP-Practice Stream provides primary care practices with more flexibility to respond to local community needs and gaps in services. This includes helping practices to meet the increasingly complex health needs of older people and people living with chronic and complex conditions. It is designed to complement and strengthen existing services, not replace or duplicate them.

WIP-Practice Stream payments assist general practices with the cost of engaging eligible health professionals. They are not intended to cover the whole cost of engaging eligible health professionals.

The Australian Government invested a further $445.1 million over 5 years to increase the Workforce Incentive Program (WIP) – Practice Stream in the May 2023 federal budget. Funding included:

• increases to payments (from July 2023)
• indexation changes (from August 2024)
• data and accountability changes

From July 2023, practices received up to a 30% increase in their WIP- Practice Stream payment. The incentive payable is based on the practice Standardised Whole Patient Equivalent (SWPE), health professional types and average hours worked.

The maximum incentive amount increased from $125,000 to $130,000 per practice, per year before applying rural loading. The linkage of the SWPE to the maximum incentive amount decreased from 5,000 to 4,000, meaning more practices can access the maximum incentive cap.

From November 2023, midwives and paramedics were added to the eligible health professional types under the WIP-Practice Stream.

From August 2024, indexation has been applied to all WIP- Practice Stream payments.

Program statistics 

As of August 2024, WIP – Practice Stream supports: 

• 22,600 health practitioners across 5,900 general practices. 
• On average, practices receive around $20,900 per quarter.
• Over 487,100 average hours per week of multidisciplinary care in general practice. 
• A combined total of 17,400 registered nurses, enrolled nurses, nurse practitioners and midwives. Nurses are the most engaged health professional type recorded under WIP-Practice Stream.
  • Approximately 98% of practices under the program engage nurses.
  • Combined nurses and midwives were engaged for 408,400 average hours per week.
• 600 Aboriginal health practitioners and workers.
• 4,600 allied health professionals.
• A total of 58,000 average hours are worked weekly by allied health professionals.
• The top four allied health professional types engaged in order across metropolitan, rural and remote regions are:

Metro – MM1-2 regions

1. physiotherapists 
2. psychologists
3. podiatrists 
4. dieticians / nutritionists

Rural – MM3-5 regions

1. psychologists
2. physiotherapists
3. dieticians / nutritionists
4. podiatrists 

Remote – MM6-7 regions

1. diabetes educators
2. psychologists
3. podiatrist
4. physiotherapists

How it works

Services Australia administers the WIP-Practice Stream for us (see Services Australia’s program page).

When a practice participates in the Practice Stream, it must report to Services Australia on the health professionals it is engaging and their average weekly hours.

Every quarter, Services Australia sends a statement to the practice to confirmed or correct. This includes details of hours worked during that quarter by eligible health professionals employed by the practice. Once Services Australia receives the returned completed statement, it pays the incentive directly to the practice.

See WIP – Practice Stream obligations for details.

Review of General Practice Incentives

The independent Review of General Practice Incentives (Review) looked at whether the Practice Incentives Program and Workforce Incentive Program are effective and fit for purpose. This included the WIP-Practice Stream. 

An expert advisory panel oversaw the review, including: 

• looking at existing data and evaluation on current general practice incentives
• looking at international evidence on best-practice blended funding models for general practice and primary care 
• consulting with:
  • individuals
  • primary care peak organisation
  • primary healthcare providers
  • other interested organisations
  • researchers. 

To inform this work, KPMG undertook an Effectiveness Review of General Practice Incentives which is a retrospective review, looking at the effectiveness and impact of the current Practice Incentives Program and WIP. The report contains data, insights, and analysis of the programs including the WIP- Practice Stream. 

The Review identified ways to redesign current general practice incentive programs to better support quality, patient-centred primary care from multidisciplinary teams.

The Panel’s final report was delivered to Government for consideration in October 2024. 

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