Physiotherapists and Accredited Exercise Physiologists wishing to provide the GLA:D^® Australia Program must attend one of the GLA:D^® Australia courses, and complete and maintain certification following training. Only certified clinicians can provide the GLA:D^® Australia Program.  

The GLA:D^® Australia Program is delivered by trained and certified physiotherapists and AEPs (accredited exercise physiologists), and has been adapted from physiotherapist-led programs of GLA:D^® Denmark, and GLA:D^® Canada. The program has been delivered to more than 30,000 Danish participants, with findings indicating significant improvements in pain, function and physical activity, as well as reduced analgesia consumption and fewer sick days. 

Replicating the Danish initiative, we are currently collecting data from participants treated with the program by clinicians in our nation wide database. We hope to use these findings to lobby the government and private health insurers to improve care, in line with current Osteoarthritis clinical guidelines.

GLA:D^® Australia recognises the skills that other health professionals possess to assist in the diagnosis, treatment and management of hip and knee osteoarthritis. We recommend that all GLA:D^® Australia clinicians engage with such health professionals where appropriate to optimise current evidence based management of osteoarthritis.

• Currently, we know there is large variation in the quality of care provided by experienced and inexperienced clinicians.
• In fact, our research indicates that when considering experience and post-graduate training, these factors are either
  • not related to practices and knowledge (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34548210/); or
  • negatively associated (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33662892/).
• We want everyone to be on the same page, with consistent knowledge of the benefits and harms associated with various treatments for OA.
• GLA:D has become a trusted program among other health professionals (e.g. surgeons, GPs) and funders (e.g. private health insurers beginning to fund in full) – the minimum standard, including training and certification of all clinicians, is key to this.
• Allied health professionals are poor at evaluating what we do and demonstrating its value – changing this is a vital part of the training and certification, and is critical in ensuring trust of the program and effective advocacy efforts (e.g. PHI funding).

The 2024 course fee will be $750 per attendee (GST free), with a $50 discount available to multiple attendees paying together in a single transaction.  This fee includes 4 years of certification, with a test to be completed at 12-months following training in order to maintain certification.

In addition, administration fees will apply for: 

• transfer of registration to another course – $77 incl GST ($70 + $7 GST)
• transfer of registration to another attendee – $55 incl GST ($50 + $5 GST)
• changes to modules within a course due to inability to attend (subject to discussion with training team) – $55 incl GST ($50 + $5 GST)
• cancellation fee – $55 incl GST ($50 + $5 GST)

Payment for training courses is taken along with registration details through the La Trobe University Xetta system.  Payment can be made via credit card or PayPal.  GLA:D^® Australia is not able to invoice for training courses.

• Divide sessions into large rooms of 20-25, and then small tutorial rooms of 3-5 attendees.
• Tutors work with only 2 rooms to provide feedback and answer questions, just as would happen in a face-to-face course.
• Set you up to have structured conversations and teaching practice of exercises – everyone has the opportunity to learn and to teach.
• Make sure that the content is exactly the same as the face-to-face sessions, using skills we’ve all learned over the past couple of years.
• Support you to use technology so that you can use those options for service delivery with your clients.

Certification applies to all clinicians providing the program. Only clinicians holding current certification with GLA:D^® Australia are eligible to provide the program and register participants.

Ensuring clinicians are certified helps the GLA:D^® Australia team to preserve the integrity and consistency of the program.  Certification consists of a test on the completion of training, and is valid for 12 months post-training.  At this time, certified exercise-professionals are offered the opportunity to re-certify for 3 years.  There is a time-limit of 60 days to complete this re-certification.  Certification fees are detailed above.

Any GLA:D^®-trained clinicians who miss the cut-off dates for or delay their re-certification will still be able to complete it; however, additional activities and fees may apply.  These will be explained to individuals on application.

The GLA:D^® Australia Program has been set up as an implementation project by researchers at La Trobe’s Sports and Exercise Medicine Research Centre, following on from research by the GLA:D^® Program Developers in Denmark, aimed at improving care for people suffering from hip and/or knee osteoarthritis, and as such is not centred around making money or charging fees.

However, as we advocate for more sustainable models of funding, a certification model is being developed.  Clinicians who complete and pass the post-course testing will be awarded certification for 12 months at no additional cost.  After 12 months, certified clincians will be invited to re-certify for 3 years.  The cost to re-certify is $90+GST for clinicians trained prior to 2023; for clinicians training in 2023 onward, this cost is incorporated into the initial training fee.  

Only GLA:D^®-certified clinicians will be able to offer the GLA:D^® Australia Program at their clinics, but all clinicians who complete the training will be able to incorporate their learnings into clinical practice.

Fees for 2024:

• Initial course training fee $750 (paid through course registration)
• Additional fees related to courses
  • transfer of registration to another course – $77 incl GST ($70 + $7 GST)
  • transfer of registration to another attendee – $55 incl GST ($50 + $5 GST)
  • changes to modules within a course due to inability to attend (subject to discussion with training team) – $55 incl GST ($50 + $5 GST)
  • cancellation fee – $55 incl GST ($50 + $5 GST)
• Re-certification fees
  • Fee for late (more than 6 months) certification / re-certification $50+GST ($55).  Additional work (review of training content) will also apply.
  • Clinicians who trained prior to 2023 have a base re-certification fee of $90+GST ($99)
  • Clinicians training from 2023 onwards will NOT have a separate re-certification fee – but will still need to meet other requirements including testing. 
• Refresher course
  • For clinicians who wish to
    • re-certify more than 12 months after the due date will be able to avoid repeating the training by completing a refresher course
    • certify more than 6 months after completing initial training
  • Refresher course cost is $250+GST ($275)

All fees EXCEPT initial training fees can be paid here: https://pay.latrobe.edu.au/MaterialsSHE/tran?tran-type=7272; and should only be done in consultation with and on advice from GLA:D® Australia.

The team at GLA:D^® Australia are always looking for opportunities to improve the diagnosis, treatment and management of hip and knee osteoarthritis.  If you are interested in collaborating with research please get in touch with the GLA:D^® Australia Team –GLAD.Australia@latrobe.edu.au

The GLA:D^® Australia Program is currently only available to Australian Registered Physiotherapists and Accredited Exercise Physiologists practicing in Australia.

For details about GLA:D^® Training Programs offered overseas, please visit https://gladinternational.org/ .

For all other international inquiries please contact Soren Skou – stskou@health.sdu.dk or visit the GLA:D^® International Network website .

Providers set the cost of the Program at their organisation/clinic, with most private clinics charging between $500-$700. Supervised exercise sessions can be billed under a “Group Consultation”, item code 560 (physiotherapists) or 502 (accredited exercise physiologists), with eligible participants receiving a rebate from their private health insurers.

We note that the private health insurance landscape is currently undergoing a period  of change and we recommend clinicians individually discuss options with patients. Eligible participants will receive a rebate from their private health insurers.

The GLA:D^® Program is generally run as a group session, but can be run individually if needed, depending on the participant’s needs.

Medicare-subsidised visits, under the Chronic Disease Management or Enhanced Primary Care plan, are only valid for 1:1 consultations, including the participant’s initial assessment, 3 month follow-up assessment and 1:1 supervised exercise sessions.

GLA:D^® Australia, along with Denmark, Canada, Switzerland and New Zealand, use an online registry that automatically sends questionnaires to participants and compiles the results on a secure, onshore server.

This only allows the research team at La Trobe University to access the data, that is then used (de-identified) in research publications, reports and our annual review.

So far this method has been used to collect information on more than 17,000 Australian participants and over 85,000 international participants.