The Federal Government has announced that they are enabling vulnerable health practitioners to use telehealth for consultations with all patients, assuming practitioners are authorised to use telehealth item numbers.
This gives protection to practitioners who are most vulnerable, while allowing them to continue to provide support and care to their patients.
Vulnerable practitioners and health professionals have been identified as:
- 70+ years old
- Indigenous and aged over 50 years old
- Pregnant
- A parent with child under 12 months
- Immune compromised
- Have a chronic disease, which results in increased risk from COVID-19 infection
In response to this announcement, HotDoc has updated our workflow to support practitioners who fall into this category—allowing them to turn on Telehealth appointments for all appointments.
HotDoc clinics can activate this setting for vulnerable doctors now by:
- Going to the Dashboard > Practitioner Set-Up
- Selecting the practitioner
- And clicking ‘Edit’ next to the Telehealth (Phone Consult) appointment type
Next steps
It is expected that the rollout of a more comprehensive telehealth model of care will be confirmed this week. This will include mental health and allied health consultations.
HotDoc is working quickly to ensure that our products and workflows are updated to support the updates coming from the Australian Government. We are proud to be supporting our clinics while they supporting our greater community.
Learn more about HotDoc’s COVID-19 efforts at our COVID-19 Info Hub.
