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 has made significant investments in WIP-Practice Stream over successive Budgets since October 2022, including:

• increasinges to payments and rural loading amounts (from July 2023)
• applyingindexation changes (from August 2024)
• implementingdata and accountability changes
• expanding the eligible health professionals list to include midwives and paramedics.

Program statistics 

As at August 2026, WIP – Practice Stream supports:  

• 25,702 health practitioners across 6,194 general practices. 
• On average, practices receive around $22,962 per quarter (including loadings). Over 522,122  hours per week of multidisciplinary care in general practice. 
• A combined total of 19,885 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 438,845 hours per week.
• 589 Aboriginal health practitioners and workers.
• 5,228 eligible allied health professionals.
• A total of 64,588 hours are worked weekly by eligible allied health professionals.
• The top 4 allied health professional types engaged in order across metropolitan, rural and remote regions are:

Metro – MM1–2 regions

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

Rural – MM3–5 regions

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

Remote – MM6–7 regions

1. physiotherapists  
2. social workers 
3. psychologist  
4. diabetes educators 

How it works

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

When a practice participates in the WIP - 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 amend correct. This includes details of average weekly hours worked during that quarter by eligible health professionals employed by the practice. Once the practice updates online through HPOS or Services Australia receives the returned completed statement, it pays the incentive directly to the practice’s nominated bank account.

See WIP – Practice Stream obligations for details.

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