Private providers on alternative provider medical services (APMS) contracts can undercut existing practices because their contracts do not include global sum top-ups that the vast majority of GMS practices rely on.
More than 90 per cent of GMS practices receive correction factor top-ups under the MPIG, to protect them from earning less core pay than they did under the previous contract.
Correction factors account for about a quarter of core pay on average, equivalent to about £100,000. APMS contracts do not have to take account of the MPIG.
Accountants predict that about 15 per cent of practices will operate on APMS deals in three to five years. Laurence Slavin, a partner at specialist medical accountants Ramsay Brown and Partners, told GP that PCTs will see this as the tipping point to rule that MPIG is no longer justified.
