Govt faces backlash from doctors as Medicare telehealth cuts loom
Funding for longer phone consults ends next week but many GPs believe video consults have little additional benefit
Medicare items for longer telephone consults, which will be scrapped next week, need to be retained because of the ongoing risk of COVID-19 transmission in GP practices, the RACGP says.
The $75.75 MBS item for telephone consults lasting longer than 20 minutes will vanish next Friday despite being claimed almost 100,000 times in April.
