Medical professionals say it will have positive impacts in the long run, as regional patients are reeling from recent changes to the Medicare rebate for telehealth appointments.
A rebate for telehealth appointments that are longer than 20 minutes was removed from the Medicare Benefits ScheduleMedicare Benefits Schedule.
It caused mixed reactions from regional residents who had become reliant on over-the- phone appointments because of a lack of accessibility and long wait times for face-to- face consults.
Helen Barter, a Victorian nurse, said she welcomed the changes.
She said she saw about 60 patients a day and many of them were vulnerable.
She said that they're older people with diabetes, cardiac failure, respiratory illnesses.
They're people you need to listen to, you need to listen to their chest, you need to see what their oxygen saturation is, you need to look in their throat, you need to feel their pulse, you need to talk to them and gain a proper history of them. Her clinic hasn't offered telehealth as an option instead of sticking by its philosophy to consult face-to-face, even during the Pandemic.
She said that we didn't have the luxury of telehealth because we were too busy seeing our patients.
I really can't understand the absolute benefit of telehealth because you can't put your hands on the patient. Ms Barter said that telephone consults weren't solving any of the issues facing regional communities.
She said one of the biggest was attracting and retaining doctors to regional areas.
She said that we need more doctors.
We have a lot of doctors who have dedicated their whole lives to being GPs who are retiring. The Rural Doctors Association of Australia past president John Hall said there was less focus on initiatives that boosted doctor numbers, which could be an unintended consequence of telehealth.
Governments could see replacing boots on the ground as an easy out for replacing boots, and we think that's completely unavoidable, Dr Hall said.
It's important that people have access to doctors, nurses and health care teams on the ground to make sure they have equitable access to healthcare. He said people should return to in-person consultations for better health outcomes.
He said there are many things you can't do over the phone.
There are going to be things that are going to be missed if people aren't able to be fully assessed by a clinician. When used for shorter consultations like refilling a script, telehealth could help reduce the backlog and wait times for face-to- face appointments, according to Dr Hall.
He said it shouldn't be relied on for more complex matters.
He said it is important to have a role in supporting rural and remote Australia, but also in conjunction with ensuring boots on the ground.
At the end of the day, rationalising appropriately is not a bad thing, because Medicare is a finite bucket of money and we need to be careful about how we spend it. He said funding reform and better investment was needed to solve some of the issues.