The Coordinated Veterans’ Care Program

The Coordinated Veterans’ Care (CVC) Program is a new initiative introduced by the government, to help improve the health and quality of care of Gold Card holders.

The CVC program will target veterans, widowers, war widows and dependents that have a current gold card and may be at risk of being admitted to hospital. The CVC program is focused on providing additional support for veterans with complex care needs and who may have one or more chronic conditions. The aim of the program is to provide ongoing care coordination with the involvement of the GP, practice nurse or Community nurse and eliminate the need for admission to hospital.

The CVC program uses a proactive approach in managing ongoing care of participants. The program will focus on Gold Card holders with the following conditions:

• Coronary artery disease
• Congestive heart failure
• Pneumonia
• Diabetes
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

 

Enrolling a participant in the CVC Program

Identification of potential participants will be disseminated in a number of ways, via The Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), GP identification, recommendations from other health providers and also gold card holders self identification. Enrolment of a participant in the CVC program is at the discretion of the GP, following a needs assessment against the eligibility criteria.

Benefits for participants

By participating in the program, participants will feel more confident and capable of self-managing their conditions and less likely to be admitted to hospital.

GPs who decide to be involved in the CVC Program are required to:

• enrol participants in the program
• provide ongoing care.

Payments for GPs

By enrolling in the program, GPs can claim the following incentive payments through existing payment arrangements with Medicare Australia:

• Initial Incentive Payment for enrolling a participant in the program
• Quarterly Care Payments for ongoing care.

	Initial Incentive Payment		Quarterly Care Payments		Total Year 1	Total Year 2 Onward
	$	Item #	$	Item #
GP with practice nurse	$400.00	UP01	$417.50	UP03	$2070	$1670
GP without practice nurse	$250.00	UP02	$187.50	UP04	$1000	$750

For more information on the CVC Program go to www.dva.gov.au/cvc.htm