What is a PIP?

Practice Improvement Payments (PIP)

There are many reasons to focus on quality improvement in you practice and the services you provide. This has been recognised by the federal government who provide practice improvement payments for those practices who can show a commitment to continuous quality improvement.

Eligible practices can receive a maximum payment of $12,500 per quarter, based on $5.00 per Standardised Whole Patient Equivalent, per year.

To access this support, you will need to be contributing in two ways. Firstly, your practice will need to submit unidentified data from your software to the government via your local Primary Health Network (PHN) every quarter. This is used to contribute to national health policy and regional planning. Secondly, you will need to be undertaking a continuous quality improvement activity with your PHN. This is where you can use this toolkit and ideas.

Continuous Quality Improvement activities (PIP QI)

Practices may focus their quality improvement activities on specified Improvement Measures. There are no set targets for the Improvement Measures. Alternatively, practices can choose to focus their activities on other areas. These areas must be informed by their clinical information system data and meet the needs of their practice population.

Understanding Quality Improvement (QI)

Quality Improvement (QI) is a structured, team-based approach focused on continually assessing and enhancing systems and processes within a healthcare setting. The ultimate aim is to improve the quality, safety, and effectiveness of care delivered to patients, resulting in better health outcomes.

When implemented consistently, QI strategies have been shown to drive meaningful and sustainable improvements in general practice—particularly when all team members are actively engaged and contribute to the process.

Key Domains of Quality Improvement in General Practice

Quality Improvement initiatives typically address one or more of the following six domains:

Safety

Minimising risks and preventing harm to patients during the delivery of care.

Effectiveness

Providing care that is evidence-based and likely to result in positive outcomes.

Patient-Centred Care

Ensuring care is respectful of, and responsive to, individual patient preferences, needs, and values.

Timeliness

Reducing delays in care, thereby improving access and reducing potential harm.

Efficiency

Streamlining processes to eliminate waste and use resources wisely.

Equity

Delivering care that is consistent and fair, regardless of a patient’s gender, ethnicity, location, or socio-economic status.

Conducting a Quality Improvement (QI) Activity

A Quality Improvement (QI) activity is any structured action your practice undertakes as part of its ongoing efforts to enhance care delivery and patient outcomes.

The Model for Improvement (MFI)

The Model for Improvement guides QI activities through two key parts:

🧠 The Thinking Part

Teams ask three key questions to plan their activity:

1. What are we trying to improve?
2. How will we measure success?
3. What change can we test to improve?

These questions set clear, measurable goals.

🛠️ The Doing Part – PDSA Cycles

Once an idea is ready, teams run Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles:

• Plan – Decide what to test and predict the outcome
• Do – Carry out the test on a small scale
• Study – Review results and learn from the data
• Act – Refine or expand based on what works

PDSA cycles help practices learn quickly and make improvements with low risk.