‘The requirement to consult with at least two collaborating providers, as described under the current TCA requirements, will be removed.’
Patients with a GP management plan or team care arrangement written before 1 July 2025 can keep using it until 30 June 2027. After that, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing is explicit: ‘From 1 July 2027 patients will require a GPCCMP to continue to access allied health and other services.’
The same date applies to medication reviews. ‘From 1 July 2027 only patients with a GP chronic condition management plan (GPCCMP) will be eligible to access domiciliary medication management reviews through the MBS.’
Ten months sounds like room. It is less than it looks, because the transition is not a single administrative task — every affected patient needs a new plan prepared, and the department’s own guidance is that they should be moved across when their existing plan next falls due for review.
What has already changed
The framework changed on 1 July 2025. GP management plans and team care arrangements were replaced by a single GP Chronic Condition Management Plan. Items 229, 721, 92024 and 92055 (GPMPs), 230, 723, 92025 and 92056 (TCAs) and 233, 732, 92028 and 92059 (reviews) all ceased on that date.
The replacements are item 965 to prepare a plan face to face and 967 to review one, with 92029 and 92030 as the video equivalents. Prescribed medical practitioners use 392, 393, 92060 and 92061. The scheduled fee to prepare a plan is $156.55 for a GP and $125.30 for a prescribed medical practitioner.
A plan can be prepared once every 12 months where clinically relevant and reviewed every three months. Plans do not expire, but a patient must have had one prepared or reviewed in the previous 18 months to keep accessing services under it.
One exclusion is worth knowing because it is widely missed: GPCCMPs are not available to patients who are care recipients in a residential aged care facility. Those patients access allied health through a multidisciplinary care plan instead.
The requirement to consult is gone
The substantive change is not the item numbers. Under the old team care arrangement, a GP had to consult at least two collaborating providers before the arrangement could be claimed. The GPCCMP does not carry that requirement.
The department’s factsheet puts it plainly: ‘Consultation with at least two collaborating providers is no longer required. GPs and PMPs can refer patients with a GPCCMP directly to relevant services. There is no requirement for allied health providers to confirm acceptance of the referral or otherwise provide input into the preparation of the GPCCMP.’
This was a deliberate simplification, and the stated reason was administrative burden. The RACGP describes it in its own guidance to members as part of a streamlined referral process, with the old allied health referral form replaced by ordinary referral letters.
The plan still contemplates a team. A GP referring a patient to a multidisciplinary team member must obtain consent to share relevant parts of the plan, and must provide those parts to the team. Allied health providers must still report back to the GP after certain services. What has gone is the requirement for contact in the other direction, before the plan is written.
The schedule’s definition of a team member has survived, and it is almost word for word the test used for case conferences. A multidisciplinary team member is a person other than the GP who provides treatment or a service to the patient, provides a different kind of treatment or service to each other member, and is not an unpaid carer of the patient.
What still pays for the contact
With the collaboration requirement removed from care planning, multidisciplinary case conferencing is the remaining MBS mechanism that funds direct contact between the GP and the other clinicians treating a patient.
A GP organises a community case conference on 735 / 739 / 743 and participates on 747 / 750 / 758. Eligible allied health practitioners participate on 10955 / 10957 / 10959. A conference needs at least three participants, and note AN.0.49 counts a maximum of two medical practitioners towards that minimum.
The relationship between the two services is narrower than it is often described, and it runs both ways. A case conference cannot be claimed for preparing or reviewing a care plan — those are separate items and the conference item cannot be the vehicle for the plan work.
The permission beside it is the half that gets left out. Note AN.0.49 states: ‘If a multidisciplinary case conference is clinically relevant for a patient who has a plan, and is separate to developing or reviewing the plan, multidisciplinary case conference items may be used.’ Having a GPCCMP does not rule a patient out of a conference, and a conference can inform a plan even though it cannot be claimed as plan work.
There is also no diagnosis test for a conference. The same note says all Medicare eligible patients are eligible for the service, and unlike the GPCCMP there is no requirement for a chronic condition present for six months.
What practices need to do
Three things follow from the dates.
Any patient still on a pre-July 2025 GPMP or TCA needs a GPCCMP prepared before 1 July 2027, and the review items for the old plans have not existed since July 2025 — a patient due for review has to be transitioned rather than reviewed.
Referrals written before 1 July 2025 stay valid until all services under them have been provided, so a patient can be mid-referral and still need a new plan for whatever comes after it.
And patients registered with MyMedicare must access the plan items through the practice where they are enrolled. Patients who are not registered access them through their usual GP.
About Conference.care
Conference.care is an Australian platform for running Medicare-funded case conferences. The convening clinician organises the conference and claims the item; the platform handles the arrangements around it, including bringing a team together and rostering it to suit the patient, consent and paperwork, and a browser-based secure video room. Participants advise the convening clinician and do not take over the patient’s care. Further detail is on the case conferencing, which patients qualify and MBS items pages.
Sources
- Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Upcoming Changes to Chronic Disease Management MBS Items — Transition Arrangements for Existing Patients, factsheet, last updated 22 May 2025. mbsonline.gov.au.
- Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Upcoming Changes to Chronic Disease Management Framework — MBS Items for GP Chronic Condition Management Plans, factsheet, last updated 22 May 2025. mbsonline.gov.au.
- Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. Changes to Chronic Disease Management (CDM) Framework — FAQs. racgp.org.au.
- Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. Medicare Benefits Schedule — item descriptors and explanatory note AN.0.49. Item numbers above link to their entries on MBS Online.
General information for clinicians, current at the date of publication. It is not clinical, financial or legal advice. Item numbers, fees and explanatory notes are as published in the Medicare Benefits Schedule and should be checked against the current schedule before claiming; fees are indexed and change. Conference duration, frequency and composition remain clinical decisions for the coordinating practitioner.