Enhanced Capitation recognises that general practice teams are well placed to understand the needs of their patient population and community. It provides general practice with flexibility around how funding is used to encourage practice staff to be innovative in caring for patients who have complex health and/or social needs.

Among other things, Enhanced Capitation can be used to fund additional support roles within the practice, to engage supporting services such as social care on behalf of a patient, provide extended consultations or home visits or running clinics that proactively engage patients with complex conditions.

The expectation is that Enhanced Capitation is used in a way that enhances the quality and coordination of care provided to patients with complex health and/or social needs.

In September 2016, the way Care Plus funds were distributed to general practice teams changed. The aim was to reduce administration and ensure general practice teams had the flexibility to provide services that better matched the needs of their patients with complex health and/or social needs.

Under the new scheme, Enhanced Capitation, general practice teams were encouraged to come up with innovative ways to apply the funding, with the expectation being that it enhanced the quality and coordination of care provided to their patients with complex needs.

In the three years to 30 September 2019 the great work of general practice teams has resulted in 3,733 people being transferred from High User Health Cards to receiving support through Enhanced Capitation. This has resulted in additional funds of $3,397,605 being distributed to support general practice to care for their patients with complex needs  

Feedback from general practice is that this change has been positive. Here's what practices have told us:

“Removing the cost has provided patients requiring frequent monitoring to be correctly treated -  results in better health outcomes for the patient and greater satisfaction for clinicians.”

“The flexibility is great allows us to think outside the normal scope of how we use this funding.”