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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic drove an expansion of telehealth subsidisation in March 2020. As of October 2022, there have been over 99 million standard general practitioner consultations delivered via telehealth. The Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) GP telehealth items were initially introduced as temporary measures to facilitate remote delivery of care and reduce the transmission of COVID‐19 in the community. Most telehealth consultations were telephone based; only 3% were video based. The federal government announced the continued expiry of the Medicare rebate for long (over 20 minutes) MBS telephone items from 1 July 2022. This means that patients who require long telephone consultations must now switch to video consultations, travel to see their GP in person, or self‐fund their long telephone consultations. Note, long telephone consultations were still available for patients seeking advice on COVID‐19 antivirals until 31 December 2022, and for those living in remote and very remote areas. As the context of the pandemic shifts, re‐examination of MBS items is appropriate, and changes should be based on available evidence.

This MJA perspective shares more.

Learning Outcomes

1. Explain key components of the perspective
2. List main findings
3. Recommend steps to make video consultations more accessible and easy to use.

Details

Author: Feby Savira, Eva Yuen, Anna Ugalde, Katherine Graham and Anna Peeters

Article Type: Perspective