But one of the biggest rural medical advocacy bodies was kept out of the loop.
Last week, the RACGP publicly welcomed a seemingly minor change to the rural advanced skills workforce incentive program payment. It only got weirder from there.
For a start, the royal college’s announcement on Thursday last week actually preceded any updates from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.
At time of writing, the three documents attached to the relevant DoHDA page were all last updated in December 2025.
When contacted by The Medical Republic, representatives of both the Rural Doctors Association of Australia and ACRRM said they were still waiting to see the detail of the policy change.
Then there are the changes themselves.
In a departmental email sighted by TMR, the government confirms that it has approved an update to the rural WIP regarding how a doctor’s full-time equivalent hours are assessed for program eligibility.
Under the updated guidelines, it said, a doctor’s FTE will now be determined only by their total service across MM3 to 7 locations, rather than their total service across MM1 to 7 locations.
This means that part-time work in MM3 to 7 areas is assessed against part-time primary care roster requirements and will broaden access for doctors who are currently delivering primary care, emergency medicine or other advanced skills in a rural context but were ineligible for the payment.
“These reforms will remove unintended barriers that previously prevented many doctors from accessing incentive payments, particularly GPs delivering critical primary care and advanced skills services in rural and remote communities while also working part time in metropolitan settings,” the RACGP said.
RACGP rural chair Associate Professor Michael Clements said it “acknowledges the reality that many rural GPs work across multiple locations” and thanked the department for “acting quickly to ensure the program reflects its original intent”.
Rural Doctors Association of Australia CEO Peta Rutherford said the organisation – which represents rural GPs, non-GP specialists and generalists across the country – raised concern over the somewhat confusing nature of the changes.
Part of that confusion stems from the fact that RDAA was left out of the loop on the changes.
“This change wasn’t really workshopped through with us,” Ms Rutherford told TMR.
“We’re talking with the government to fully understand the detail, because what we want to make sure is that there’s no unintended consequences from what appears to be a minor change.”
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ACRRM president Dr Rod Martin also told TMR that the devil would be in the detail of who is now able to access the WIP.
“We can’t have it that someone who comes [to a rural area] for a short period of time and never goes back there again is able to claim a substantial amount of that WIP payment,” he said.
“I’ve got no qualms about someone claiming a pro rata WIP for the amount of time that they’re spending in a rural community and giving someone relief, but that’s a very different thing to someone who is either living there or coming back on a very regular basis to be able to provide support and backup.”
Under the current guidelines – the ones which were last updated in December – there are different levels of payment available to doctors depending on how rural they work and how many rosters they do in either emergency medicine or their relevant advanced skill area.
Those that work in an MM3, for instance, earn the lowest WIP payment under the scheme at $4000.
Those that do at least two advanced skills rosters or emergency care rosters per month and work in an MM4 or 5 location get $7000.
The largest payment, $10,500, goes to doctors in MM6 and 7 locations who do more than 22 advanced skills rosters or emergency care rosters per year.
Theoretically, a rural generalist might split their time between primary care, emergency care and another advanced skill area. These doctors are eligible for payments under both the advanced skills and the emergency medicine streams.
The highest potential payout under the program, therefore, is $21,000 per year.
