One Care chief executive Peter Williams said GP shortages presented a challenge to aged care.

"If a patient or resident is in hospital, they want to send them to aged care, and we don't have a doctor available, there is no medical support for that person," he said.

"When a patient comes from hospital into residential care you need a GP oversight of their care, because that includes medication management, as well as clinical diagnostics, which is outside of nurses scope."

Mr Williams said patients often left hospital with days worth of medication, but without a GP to administer further prescriptions.

"Within a couple of days you run into problems, because as a nurse you can't prescribe, and you certainly can't diagnose any changes in clinical conditions, so that's where it becomes quite tricky," he said.

"If we don't have everything we need under the aged care legislation, we find that people will bounce back into hospital."

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Premier Jeremy Rockliff said delayed discharge of long-stay aged care patients was contributing to acute bed block in Tasmanian hospitals.

On Friday, the premier asked the Commonwealth to pay for transitional care pathways as an interim measure.

Mr Williams said transitional program could help bridge the gap in care continuation for aged care patients

"Ultimately, what you're trying to do is have a continuation of care support under two different health settings, and without that sort of medical piece or that GP, you have a gap in the puzzle," he said.

"Under a transitional program a person would come from the acute into aged care with all of the appropriate medications, paperwork, [and] care planning assessments that we could potentially continue on with the medical directives until such time as a GP is found."

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Tasmania chair Dr Tim Jackson said a lack of GPs was "at the bedrock of it all".

"One is having the bed available to leave the acute care hospital to go to, but the other thing is having someone who can look after the patients when they're there," he said.

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Dr Jackson said the situation reflected financial pressures on GPs, complexity of care for aged care patients, and the aged care workforce.

Dr Jackson said because the Medicare rebate had not kept pace with the price of providing service, GPs were at a financial loss seeing patients in aged care homes.

"[Fewer] GPs are able to continue to see patients in nursing homes because the business model no longer stacks up, and with all the other requirements and pressure to see patients within our normal clinics, it is difficult for GPs to then go and see people in nursing homes, which we often do at lunchtime or after hours," he said.

"It's becoming increasingly more difficult because the margins aren't there anywhere else to make up the loss when you see nursing home patients."

Dr Jackson said workforce medical knowledge had decreased and GPs relied on aged care staff to be their "eyes and ears" for assessing patients.

He said it was important to increase training for aged care staff.

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Dr Jackson said with fewer GPs able to see aged care patients, services such as GP Assist or telehealth operators were filling the gap, which was not "clinically ideal".

Dr Jackson said the RACGP would be broadly supportive of a transitional model, but it would probably need to be run by hospital staff.

Federal health minister Mark Butler said the government was committed to taking pressure off public hospitals by strengthening Medicare.

The government has introduced legislation requiring a qualified registered nurse be on site residential aged care homes at all times.

Mr Butler is yet to respond to Mr Rockliff's letter.

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