News
Policy and practice, reported for clinicians
What is changing in Medicare, in the colleges and in the rules that govern how Australian clinicians work together — read from the primary documents and written for the people it lands on.
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Coroner sets new shared care expectations for GPs and psychiatrists in schizophrenia
A coroner has set out what specialist mental health services must give GPs when a patient with chronic or treatment-resistant schizophrenia comes into their care, and what has to be written down when that patient moves on. The RANZCP has accepted the recommendations; the RACGP has yet to respond.
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ADHD prescribing: what GPs can do, state by state
Queensland and WA now let trained GPs diagnose and initiate. NSW lets them resupply. The ACT lets them continue. Victoria is still training its first 150. A jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction read of what a GP is actually allowed to do.
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The care plan deadline is 1 July 2027, and the collaboration requirement is already gone
Transition arrangements for GP management plans and team care arrangements end on 30 June 2027. The replacement plan dropped the requirement to consult two collaborating providers, leaving case conferencing as the MBS item that pays for multidisciplinary contact.
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What makes team-based care work, and what makes it fragment
A scoping review of 39 studies, co-authored by RACGP president Dr Michael Wright, finds team-based care produces mixed results — and names what separates the settings where it worked: shared records, working channels between clinicians, and a GP who keeps the relationship.
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From December, practices have to disclose the software that helps make decisions about patients
A new Australian Privacy Principle takes effect on 10 December 2026. It requires privacy policies to describe the computer programs used to make, or to substantially help make, decisions affecting a patient — and the OAIC reads 'computer program' broadly.
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Case conferencing
Medicare-funded case conferences, without the legwork
Run a pilot case conference for one of your patients and see what it settles. Free for GPs — you convene the conference and claim the item; a team is brought together and rostered to suit your patient.