[AusNOG] Gillard promises video doctors with NBN

[Ashish Vadujkar]

This is perhaps pedantic but there are tele-psychiatry item numbers that
cover video conferencing. This includes one-on-one with the psychiatrist
and also case conferencing.

 

A group of Brisbane based Psychiatrists started a company back in 2001
to provide tele-psychiatry, pre-empting, the creation of those item
numbers. Telstra put in a fair bit of money to get exclusive rights to
the DSL services that were to be delivered to GP surgeries in remote
areas. GP's in Emerald, Chinchilla, Goondawindi, etc, took up the
service. Pharma companies like Lily, MSD, paid money to do e-Detailing
(so that reps can be on-line instead of being in surgeries).

 

The reasons why the service failed - despite item numbers - was because
of the inability of private patients to cover the gap and the inability
of doctor's to simply charge item number amounts. And, of course, the
monthly rental charge that the doctors would have to pay. There were
other reasons as well.

 

>From what I remember....

 

________________________________

From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net
[mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Narelle
Sent: Tuesday, 17 August 2010 4:06 PM
To: Shaun Deans :: BlueFibre
Cc: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Gillard promises video doctors with NBN

 


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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