[AusNOG] Gillard promises video doctors with NBN

[Narelle]

What has been announced is nothing like the pork barrel being made out in
some quarters.

At present the only telemedicine consult that has a medicare item number is
a psychiatric phone consult, ie the phone call to your psychiatrist when
suicidal. Other than that, if the doctor isn't in the room with you, it
can't be charged.

In medical practice, very little happens without a medicare item number. If
you can't bill for it, doctors won't do it.

Simply put, the announcement means that new medicare item numbers will be
introduced for telemedicine consults. That is, some calls will be able to be
made via teleconferencing or even more specialist telemedical systems, and
the same sort of bill can be charged as for a normal consultation.

Studies undertaken in telemedicine repeatedly show that video conferencing
and other specialist telemedical systems are extremely useful for a range of
things including: clinical follow ups, specialist assistance calls (eg local
doctor with remote specialist), second opinions, clinical review meetings
and training. Last year one of my team's PhD submission covered extensive
analysis  on surgical follow ups using a system developed in the same CSIRO
lab. For the kids being followed up over a period of years, coming from
great distances, this made a huge difference to the quality of care and
overall impact on the family.

Time and time again telemedicine take up in Australia has been measured as
low purely and simply due to there being no ability to charge for it. This
is an anomaly that is long overdue for correction. With this policy change,
the appropriate clinical practices can then develop and hopefully more of
the application systems that we couldn't get funding for - largely due to
this anomaly.


all the best


On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Shaun Deans :: BlueFibre <
s.deans at bluefibre.com.au> wrote:

>  Andrew.
>
>
>
> This is actually a really good service.
>
> You can learn more about it from one of my clients sites :
> http://www.teledr.com.au/
>
> It's also only extending the services which are offered by a GP to people
> in remote areas who can't get to them.
>
>
>
> What's the use of a super NBN (what every form the "pony" takes) if we
> don't embrace the tech that uses it ??
>



-- 


Narelle
narellec at gmail.com
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