We had the news of a six month extension (and a hint of permanency from the Minister) on benefits for telehealth late last week.
There is coverage here:
Extension great, but make telehealth permanent
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt’s welcome extension of telehealth for six months is one step — the more important one is working out how the measure can be made a permanent fixture.
The myriad telehealth benefits to patients during the pandemic are known by Hunt to be the platform for a revolution in healthcare that should ensure its continuity after March.
Convenience, safety and efficiency are just springboards to the wider digital health revolution. The immediate problem is cost, because during the pandemic 10.5 million patients have undertaken 30.5 million consultations — all bulk-billed on Medicare.
The principle of universal healthcare can’t be touched, so it’s a matter of working through ways to minimise the downsides including potential fraud.
Most GPs would prefer patients come to them because they have more control, visits last longer and, putting health issues to one side, the visits are also more remunerative.
But there is no doubting the efficiency of telehealth and, as Australian Unity’s Rohan Mead has commented, “the aim is to get to the stage where the patient tells the doctor he or she is ready to be seen”.
ANDHealth’s Bronwyn Le Grice has argued the COVID regulatory changes and the rapid acceptability of telehealth should open the door in Australia to the wider digital health industry.
The sector includes connected and wearable devices (so doctors can monitor patients and only intervene if the treatment plans are off track), home delivery and monitoring of medicines and the treatment of software as a medical device.
Move here:
And here among others:
Telehealth item numbers extended, bulk-bill requirements dropped
Bulk-billed telehealth has been thrown a six-month life line, with federal Health Minister Greg Hunt announcing the Medicare item numbers will continue past their original 30 September deadline.
This week’s announcement will see all bulk-billed phone and video consults continue in their current format, until 31 March 2021.
In another welcome measure, the requirement for GPs to bulk-bill many segments of the population – including the young, the old, the chronically ill, people with COVID-19 and parents of infants – has been dropped, according to RACGP acting president, Associate Professor Ayman Shenouda.
Those requirements were widely seen as unfair as they had only applied to GPs, not to other specialists.
The telehealth extension is to be funded under an additional $2 billion funding package which will extend a range of other COVID-19 health measures for an additional six months.
These include Medicare-subsidised pathology services, GP-led respiratory clinics, home medicines delivery, public and private hospital services and investment in personal protective equipment.
Lots more here:
http://medicalrepublic.com.au/telehealth-item-numbers-extended-bulk-bill-requirements-dropped/34628
It is also geed to see some of the non-telehealth adaptions to the pandemic extended.
Clearly it makes sense to plan on making telehealth Medicare benefits permanent but we also need to work to fully evaluate its effects and quality, privacy safety and accessibility of these services while ensuring that the benefits are only claimed legitimately – the risk of fraud is non-trivial!
Before any further extension I really want to see some serious reviews of just how clinically useful and safe it is!
A minor gripe is the seeming elision of telehealth and Digital Health. To me this is a very, very long stretch! It is really no more that a clinical application of very basic communications technology(s)!
What do you think?
David.
1 comment:
Having used ‘telehealth’ what some envision and what is reality are poles apart. I agree David, it is no more digital health than it is rocket science. Probably why it is not call digihealth or rocket health.
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