Funding beyond MBS: PHNs, the Indigenous Australians' Health Programme and the Workforce Incentive Program
The block and grant funding that pays for capability, not just consultations.
What this is: a guide to the main funding sources outside Medicare that can pay for virtual care capability.
Who it's for: clinic and ACCHO leaders, practice managers and anyone planning the funding for a virtual care service.
Verify before you plan. Program rules and amounts change. This guidance is current as at June 2026. Confirm the detail with your Primary Health Network and the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing before you rely on it.
Why look beyond Medicare
Medicare pays for consultations, one service at a time. It does not directly pay for the things that make virtual care possible, such as equipment, connectivity, the person at the patient end, and the coordination behind a good service. For that, you usually need block or grant funding. Three sources matter most in remote and primary care.
Primary Health Networks
Your Primary Health Network commissions primary care in its region, and that increasingly includes virtual care capability, especially in thin markets and remote areas where a service would not otherwise be viable. Networks fund care coordination, support programs, and local initiatives, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health is one of their priorities. They also deliver the Integrated Team Care program in many regions, which funds care coordination and supplementary services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with chronic conditions. Talk to your network early about what it is commissioning and how virtual care fits.
The Indigenous Australians' Health Programme
The Indigenous Australians' Health Programme is the Australian Government's largest First Nations specific health investment, and it is the main source of funding for comprehensive primary health care delivered through Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services. It funds service delivery, targeted health initiatives, infrastructure, and sector support.
Comprehensive primary health care funding is now allocated through an activity-based Funding Distribution Model. The model shares the funding pool according to each service's activity, measured by client numbers and episodes of care reported each year through the Online Services Report. Funding now runs through multi-year rolling agreements, which give services more certainty to plan staffing and services, including virtual care. The Integrated Team Care program also sits under this programme.
The Workforce Incentive Program
The Workforce Incentive Program helps fund the workforce that virtual care depends on. It has three streams.
The Practice Stream helps general practices and community-controlled services engage nurses, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Practitioners, and allied health professionals, through quarterly payments. It includes a loading for community-controlled services and a rural loading for more remote locations. The Doctor Stream makes direct payments to doctors who provide primary care in rural and remote areas, scaled by how remote the location is under the Modified Monash Model and by the volume and length of service. The Rural Advanced Skills Stream adds payments for doctors who bring advanced or emergency skills to rural and remote communities.
How to put it together
The strongest services stack these sources. Medicare pays for the consultations, while block and grant funding pays for the capability around them, and workforce incentives help you keep the team. A practical first step is to map which source could pay for each part of your virtual care service, the equipment, the connectivity, the patient-end role, the coordination, and then talk to your Primary Health Network about the gaps. The next article section, on demonstrating quality, will help you build the evidence a funder wants to see.
Need help?
- Visionflex support: visionflex.com/support | support@visionflex.com | +61 2 8914 4000 (9am to 5pm AEST)
- See also: MBS telehealth items: what you can bill now, The eligible telehealth practitioner rule and its exemptions, Why virtual care in remote and primary health, Your first steps: planning a rollout
Visionflex acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and pays respect to Elders past, present and emerging.