The scheme aims to move procedures traditionally carried out in hospital to specially trained GPs, rather than specialists.
Mr Macara said it was possible the PHO would convince the Southern District Health Board to stump up money for more procedures to be carried out in the community.
Judging by its success in years when the scheme was administered as separate Otago and Southland programmes under the Southern DHB, procedure limits would be reached in a few months.
For 2011-12, it had been announced Otago had 360 funded procedures. Southland, where the scheme was available only in rural areas, had 240 procedures.
The skin lesion service freed up hospital specialists for more serious procedures, while patients saved time and money by being treated in the community.
The scheme was under review and one of the big questions was whether to offer more procedures in Dunedin, where residents were close to Dunedin Hospital, or to focus on rural Otago.
The service allowed certified GPs to remove potentially cancerous growths.
More GPs were showing an interest in training to carry out the procedures, he said.
A recent audit of Otago and Southland GPs carried out by Dunedin Hospital specialists showed the standard of procedure in the community was extremely high, Mr Macara said.
Southern DHB finance and funding general manager Robert Mackway-Jones said the DHB had to cap the procedures to keep to budget limits.
"Many services areas have demand exceeding supply ... supply is hindered by availability of funding and, as such, the DHB prioritises where funding goes to the best of its ability, given all constraints."
Mr Mackway-Jones released the audit of the skin lesion GPs, which revealed the quality of the procedures had improved over the past three years.
