Concerns have been raised for the future of general practice after the federal government implemented changes to telehealth, despite warnings from two of Australia's peak medical bodies.
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Anthony Albanese's new government pushed ahead with planned changes to how telehealth services would be bulk billed on June 30, despite the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners warning the changes would disproportionately affect regional communities.
AMA Tasmanian President Dr John Saul said the decision to end bulk billing for 20-minute phone consultations was short-sighted.
"It just makes you really angry," he said
"I'm coming to the end of my time, but young doctors are trying to make a start in general practice... How are we going to attract the GPs if we get such a lowball offer on the Medicare rebate. "It's just an insult to offer so little increase in the Medicare rebate."
While the 20-minute phone consultation has been removed, web consults of 20 minutes will remain, but Dr Saul said the disadvantaged would be the ones who would suffer.
"It's very nice with 4G and people with smartphones, but some of our most disadvantaged people are elderly, pensioners and mentally health challenged, many of them do not have access to that technology," he said.
"They are disadvantaged rural areas where you cannot have a video consultation, so you're likely to have a telephone consultation. "This is a very short-sighted move to weaken Medicare, rather than strengthen it."
RACGP Tasmanian president Dr Tim Jackson echoed Dr Saul's concerns.
"The problem is about 92 per cent of all telehealth has been just on the phone rather than the video, and so it disadvantages people that just aren't very savvy with using the video - including some GPs," he said.
"We are disappointed because it does make telehealth options limited, particularly for the people who probably most need it."
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