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Reduce Your 10-Year Moratorium Medicare’s 19AB rules require doctors who studied for their medical degrees outside of Australia to work in an area of distribution priority (DPA) for their first 10 years of practice in Australia. By committing to work in certain doctor-short locations, an overseas GP may be able to complete a GP Fellowship, gain permanent residency, and have no restrictions on their work within 4 years of commencing work in Australia. There are two ways to reduce the length of time that you are bound by the moratorium. Moratorium Scaling Medicare operates the Department of Health’s Moratorium Scaling scheme, which automatically calculates additional reductions monthly. Under the scaling system, working in rural and remote areas earns scaling credits. The more remote the location, the more credits you earn. This is measured against the ASGS Remoteness Areas, using the Health Workforce Locator Map . For example, the coastal city of Bunbury is listed as “Inner Regional Australia, RA 2”. According to the table, working there reduces your 10-year moratorium to 9 years. If you work in Port Hedland (Remote classification RA4, two-hour’s flight to Perth) your moratorium will be 6 years. This could be a great option for a doctor who worked in another setting for 4 years and is now moving into primary care. In addition, look below at the second moratorium reduction method. Scaling occurs for each month that you work and produce the minimum Medicare billings in that location. That means that you do not need to be in that location the whole time to see the benefit. Scaling only applies if your work in a General Practice achieves a minimum of $5000 Medicare billings in the month. This means that if you work full-time in a hospital-based role, then you would also need to work in private General Practice for long enough to achieve those minimum billings for the month Note: It is possible to work in a DPA location until you have completed 9.5 years of the 10-year moratorium, then apply for a 6-month locum provider number in a non-DPA location. Note: If you leave the location, you will maintain all of the accumulated reduction of the moratorium. This is different from the Five-Year IMG Scheme, below. The Five-Year International Medical Graduates Recruitment Scheme The 5-year International Medical Graduates Recruitment Scheme (IMG) aims to attract and retain appropriately qualified and experienced Overseas Trained Doctors (OTDs) to work in private General Practices in some of Australia’s smaller rural communities. Contrary to its title, by committing to work in remote locations under the 5-Year Scheme you may reduce your moratorium to as little as three years. To gain the benefits of the 5-Year Scheme, applicants must be willing and able to: Complete the required number of years that you commit to in the location deemed eligible for the Scheme; and Attain Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) or Fellowship of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM); and Attain permanent residency in Australia and/or Australian citizenship. Five-Year IMG Scheme Eligibility Hold or obtain appropriate registration with the Medical Board of Australia. Be eligible to be assessed for FRACGP or FACRRM within two years of commencing on the Scheme. Provide at least seven sessions a week (i.e. 3.5 days of full-time equivalent) in a private General Practice as part of their placement (i.e., not in the hospital setting). Five-Year IMG Scheme Locations As the full list of locations is not published, we check each location to determine the number of years required. As an example, currently the scheme offers: Albany                         5 years Broome                       4 years Darwin                        5 years Geraldton                   5 years Hall’s Creek                3 years Kalgoorlie                   4 years Katanning                   4 years Karratha                     4 years Manjimup                   5 years Newman                     4 years Port Hedland             4 years Tom Price                   3 years Note: If you leave the location before your required number of years is complete, you will not gain any benefit from the Five-Year IMG Scheme. However, you will always be able to use the reduction attained from the moratorium scaling, as explained above. Benefits of Rural Work and Lifestyle When making these plans, it is worth considering all the positives of working in the bush. Remember, that there are systems in place to support IMGs in their transition to work in rural and remote placements. The rural workforce agencies, primary health authorities, your practice, colleagues, the colleges, and other agencies ensure that GPs moving to the bush receive a suitable orientation. They are supported to be able to provide good care to the community. You will have a chance to practice a broad range of medicine while developing and refining your skills. There are greater opportunities to develop a GP sub-specialty. The shortage of GPs in many areas means high demand which leads to increased earnings. Higher incidence of private and mixed billing in some rural areas, together with government incentive bonus payments means that rural and remote GPs tend to earn higher incomes. While many IMGs based in rural areas do move to metro practices when their moratorium is completed, others will stay on for much longer as they get used to the pace of life away from the big city. This outlines how you can make a change, fast forward your career, increase your earnings and provide care for grateful communities in need. We have vacancies with rural and remote practices that can help you to reduce your 10-year moratorium. If you would like to find out more, please contact us.

Medicare Provider Number Application - PEP Specialist Pathway Medicare Provider Number Application - PEP Specialist Pathway What? – Medicare is Australia’s universal health insurance scheme. Why? – Medicare workforce rules prescribe where IMGs are able to work as a General Practitioner in Australia Why? – Medicare provides the bulk of income for you as a General Practitioner, so you will need to have a valid Medicare Provider Number. On the PEP Specialist Pathway, after you have completed RACGP PartC, your Medicare Provider Number application will be lodged on your behalf by the RACGP. While waiting for your Immigration to be completed, you can fill in, and sign, the Medicare Provider Number Form (HW019)  –  ATTACHED HERE The doctor needs to complete questions 1-15 and sign manually on the last page (please ask us your queries), we will make sure the remaining questions are filled in correctly. Then, once you have received your Visa Confirmation, then you need to: Complete Part C on the RACGP Portal, and Email these documents to  pepapprovedplacement@racgp. org.au Personal page of your passport Visa confirmation – from Immigration) Copy of your Current Medical Registration – from AHPRA Letter of Support From Practice Completed and signed Medicare Provider Number Form (HW019) It can take around 2 – 4 weeks for RACGP Part C to be processed, and then RACGP submits the endorsed application to the Medicare Provider Number team on your behalf. Then your final wait for the Medicare Provider Number processing begins. From 24 hours after the email has been sent to the Medicare Provider Number team, we can call the phone number 132150 to confirm that they have received these documents, ask them to check and make sure they aren’t missing any documents, and also ask what their current number of processing days is. At different times of the year, and with higher or lower workloads, this final process can take 20, or perhaps 10 working days. For planning purposes, until it speeds up, we would recommend that you allow 30 working days for processing. Usually, in the final two weeks of waiting for the Medicare Provider Number, GPs on the PEP Specialist Pathway plan to arrive, visit their practice, meet their supervisor, and settle into other parts of their new life. *Your practice may decide to speed the process up by additionally applying for  a nonVR provider number.