The Turnbull government is forging ahead with reforms to GP care despite fears its policy is rushed and underfunded.
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The government is set to announce 200 trial sites for Health Care Homes - described by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as one of the biggest health system reforms since Medicare - in the coming days, Fairfax Media can reveal.
Under the signature policy, patients with multiple chronic conditions - as many as one in five Australians - will get a co-ordinated and managed healthcare package tailored to their individual needs.
The government says the scheme will "revolutionise the way we care for Australians with chronic diseases and complex conditions" by keeping them out of hospital and living happier and healthier lives at home.
It estimates 65,000 people will participate in the initial two-year trials, which will start on July 1.
But every major doctors' group in the country has criticised the model for the trials, pointing to inadequate funding and design deficiencies.
They banded together last year to call for a delay at least until late 2017.
The Australian Medical Association says that while it supports the ultimate vision for Health Care Homes, a lack of proper funding threatens to undermine the trials and potentially set them up to fail.
"We really want to see more dollars, because it's too important a project to see fail," AMA vice-president Tony Bartone said.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Bastian Seidel said the government's policy was falling well short of its revolutionary billing, and the government may need to "go back to the drawing board".
"It's very clear it's simply not designed to make a major difference to patients or practitioners," he said.
The government says it is providing more than $110 million for the trials, but most of that is re-allocated from other sources. Practices will also get a one-off grant of $10,000 to support their participation, but the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners believes they will need 10 times that each year for the trials to be successful.
Health Minister Greg Hunt would not comment on funding before the budget, but said more than 400 practices sought to be part of the trials, indicating a high level of demand for the government's model.
"Since coming into office, the minister has been working with the AMA and the RACGP in designing arrangements to ensure the Health Care Homes model delivers the best possible care and that general practices have time to prepare for its rollout," a spokesman told Fairfax Media.
Successful applicants for the trial were originally meant to be notified by the end of March. When that did not happen, it led to speculation the government had heard the concerns and was going to delay the trials.
Under the policy, individual fee-for-service Medicare payments will be replaced by a monthly bundled payment. The sicker the patient, the bigger the bundle, with Health Care Homes given an annual budget of between $591 and $1795 per patient a year, tiered based on the risk and complexity of their conditions.
People with chronic diseases - such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer and arthritis - often require a range of health services, from GPs to specialists, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, psychologists and dieticians.
Almost half of all potentially avoidable hospital admissions can be attributed to chronic conditions.
