When is a GP home-visit program financially viable?

Despite a decline in GP home visits in Australia, these services remain an important aspect of healthcare access and delivery for the aged population. Home visits can both provide better care and decrease use of ambulance and emergency department (ED) services. The net costs of providing GP visits are complex, depending on the relative costs of home visits and ED attendances, the number of ED attendances saved by GP visits, and the number of services provided per day by a visiting GP. The Australian Capital Territory government created the General Practice Aged Day Service (GPADS) program in March 2011. Using data and information from this program as a basis, we examine the financial aspects of a daytime home-visit program in the Australian context. Whether or not a program is financially viable depends on a range of parameters; if all factors are aligned a program can generate net savings. While there is no information available on the net health benefits of home visits relative to ED attendance, these differences need not be large for the program to be cost-effective.