Proposed new Nurse Practitioner and Nurse combined rate
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52. There is an increasing number of nurse practitioners operating in general practice. They play a vital role in the delivery of primary health care, particularly in rural and lower socio-economic areas.
53. A minor policy change, we are proposing on ACC’s recommendation, is to introduce a new combined treatment rate for a consultation that involves both a nurse practitioner and registered nurse. This will allow easier billing for these consultations.
54. The new combined treatment rate would operate in a similar manner to the current combined treatment rate for a medical practitioner and registered nurse consultation.
55. To calculate the proposed new combined rate, ACC used the same methodology it uses to set the medical practitioner and registered nurse combined rate. It considered the individual rates of both nurse practitioners (as a base) and registered nurses (as an additional top up)[3] and calculated a combined treatment rate for each class of claimant as shown in Table 6 below (before the 4.6% uplift proposed for combined rates). In comparison, the current medical practitioner and registered nurse combined rate (for a patient 14 years and over) is $35.74 and the current nurse practitioner only rate (for a patient 14 years and over) is $28.02.
56. The new combined rate will be simple to implement with only minor changes required to ACC processes. It is expected to reduce administration costs for medical practices, and should also reduce billing errors.
Question 4
Do you agree with introducing a new nurse practitioner and nurse combined treatment rate, and the specific rates (before the general increase proposed in section 3) listed in Table 6 below? Please provide reasons for your view.
Table 6: Nurse Practitioner and Nurse combined treatment rates
| Definition | Treatment rate |
|---|---|
| If the claimant is 14 years old or over when the visit takes place and is not the holder of a community services card or the dependent child of a holder | $29.33 |
| If the claimant is under 14 years old when the visit takes place | $54.21 |
| If the claimant is 14 years old or over when the visit takes place and is the holder of a community services card | $50.88 |
| If the claimant is 14 years old or over but under 18 years old when the visit takes place and is the dependent child of a holder of a community services card | $55.71 |
Footnote
[3] Currently if a combined consultation took place, ACC would pay the full amount of the registered nurse rate and 50% of the registered nurse rate, but these amounts would have to be separately itemised.