Doctors have blasted a government decision not to extend pandemic-related telehealth services that ended on Thursday, saying it will cause Covid patients and those who are vulnerable to suffer.
The federal health minister, Mark Butler, announced on Thursday that he would go ahead with a decision of the former government to end a range of telehealth services on 30 June – despite acknowledging the challenges arising from the current wave of the Covid pandemic.
The decision means that more than 70 different telehealth-related consultations will be cut, including 33 initial and complex specialist items, 40 specialist inpatient items, and GP consultations that last longer than 20 minutes.
Short telehealth consultations with GPs will still be available.
The Australian Medical Association president, Omar Khorshid, said the decision was “unacceptable” and would put the most vulnerable people at risk. He urged the minister to reconsider, suggesting the decision had been rushed.
“Australians who are most vulnerable, those that don’t have access to high speed internet or that can’t use the devices that you need to actually do a video conference, they’re going to have the telephone access that they have today taken away tomorrow,” Khorshid said.
“[This means] that the people who we least want to be sitting in a doctor’s surgery because of the risk of them contracting Covid from other patients or from their doctor, they’re going to be sitting in those waiting rooms under an increased risk of contracting Covid, or they may actually stay home, not wanting to expose themselves and actually miss out on their healthcare.”
Deputy AMA president, Chris Moy, said the cut would also prevent doctors from treating Covid-positive patients who had more complex needs at home, saying such consultations could often take “a very long time”.
“The Omicron outbreak is here and possibly could get worse, and so many of our patients, particularly those who are vulnerable, elderly, those who are trapped at home, those worried of getting out, are going to have their care compromised.”
“This decision is going to compromise the ability of general practitioners, for example, to be able to provide the antiviral treatment, which is going to be so critical in protecting individuals from getting severe disease in Covid, and also minimising the chance they end up in hospital, which is a false economy.”
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Queensland chair, Bruce Willett, said while the organisation was pleased some telehealth items were permanently available, cutting longer consultations was a “backwards step for patient care”.
“Removing these Medicare rebates is particularly detrimental for older patients, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, those with disability, and for some people living outside major cities, including rural areas,” Willett said.
Butler had previously indicated he was considering options for extending the service, but on Thursday said the government would remain firm on the deadline.
“It’s important to stress that first of all, people will always be able to have a phone consult with their doctor for shorter consults, so a Level A and Level B consult up to 20 minutes, and beyond that, they will always be able to have a remote or virtual consultation with their doctor provided it’s a video consult,” Butler said.
“[But] it’s not our intention to change the decision of the former government.”
Butler said he would defer a range of compliance measures related to telehealth that were also due to come into effect on Friday that refer doctors to the professional services review if they are deemed to be doing too many telehealth consultations.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate that those compliance measures start tomorrow, as the former government decided they would, given what GPs and patients are dealing with right now,” Butler said.
“Given the level of respiratory illness in the community, more and more people, and more and more GPs for that matter, are choosing to have consults conducted virtually and I don’t want GPs punished for that.”
Willett welcomed the deferral of the new compliance measures as a “relief” but said a comprehensive review of the rules was still necessary.
The opposition’s health spokesperson, Anne Ruston, said the emergence of telehealth during the pandemic had been a “gamechanger” and was here to stay.
“It is up to this government to make sure that we have got a health service that is fit for purpose going forward, but equally the AMA have got a very strong case to put forward that Australians have changed the way they like to get their health services delivered,” Ruston told the ABC.
