In 2010 the Government announced the Connecting Health Services with the Future: Modernising Medicare by Providing Rebates for Online Consultations initiative. This initiative will commence on July 1st 2011 and:

• provide Medicare and DVA rebates for telehealth services provided to patients in regional, remote and outer metropolitan areas, and in aged care facilities and eligible Aboriginal Medical Services;
• provide Medicare and DVA rebates for an eligible health care provider to provide clinical services at the patient end of the video consultation; and
• Provide financial incentives to encourage the uptake of telehealth services.

Patient-End Items

23 new MBS items will be available for patient-end services. These enable GPs, other medical practitioners, participating nurse practitioners and  midwives, Aboriginal health workers and practice nurses to provide clinical assistance to the patient during the specialist video consultation.

Specialist Video Consultation Items

11 new MBS items will be available for video consultations provided by specialists, consultant physicians and psychiatrists. These new items will link to a range of existing MBS attendance items that can be provided via video conferencing and add a derived fee to the base item fee. This derived fee recognises the increased time and complexity of undertaking a consultation via video conferencing.

MBS Items

Practitioners providing a MBS billed service at the patient-end of a video consultation should be aware of the eligibility requirements for these services.

In order to bill a MBS item for a patient-end service (items 2100, 2122, 2126, 2125, 2137, 2138, 2143, 2147, 2179, 2195, 2199, 2220, 10983, 10984, 82150, 82151, 82152, 82220, 82221, 82222, 82223, 82224 or 82225) all of the following conditions must be met:

• The patient-end practitioner must be supporting a patient who is participating in a consultation via video conference with a specialist or consultant physician and there is an MBS item that relates to that service;
• the specialist or consultant physician's service must be rendered in Australia;
• the specialist or consultant physician service must be provided via video conferencing (where both video and audio communication between the patient and specialist occurs);
• the patient must not be an admitted patient; and
• the patient must be either:
• a care recipient receiving care in a residential care service; or
• at an eligible Aboriginal Medical Service or Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service in relation to which a direction made under subsection 19(2) of the Act applies;
• or Located in an eligible geographical area.

A patient-end practitioner must be a medical practitioner, participating nurse practitioner/ midwife, Aboriginal health worker or practice nurse.

There are specific MBS items for the types of practitioner providing the patient-end service and these items have their own eligibility requirements. For example, participating midwives may only provide patient-end services to a patient for a video consultation with an obstetric specialist or paediatrician.

Practitioners should consult the MBS item descriptors and the explanatory notes in the MBS which are available from mbsonline.gov.au

Patient-end practitioners who provide patient-end services to residents of a RACF or to patients receiving treatment in an Aboriginal Medical Service should have a Medicare provider number linked to those locations and this will allow the practitioner to bill the appropriate MBS item.

Financial Incentives

The Government is introducing financial incentives, from 1 July 2011, to encourage and support the provision of telehealth services to Australians in Eligible Geographical Areas and in RACFs, and to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People.
These financial incentives will encourage:

• Eligible Telehealth Practitioners to provide Telehealth Services to their patients;
• Eligible Practitioners to Bulk Bill Telehealth Services; and
• RACFs to provide Hosting Services to their residents.

The incentives will also support practitioners and RACFs to adapt existing practice and business models to integrate telehealth into their services.

Five types of Incentives are available for practitioners and RACFs:

• Telehealth On-Board Incentive;
• Telehealth Service Incentive;
• Telehealth Bulk Billing Incentive;
• RACF On-Board Incentive; and
• RACF Hosting Service Incentive.

Incentive amounts are shown in the table below:

The simplified descriptions on this web page are provided for information only. For full details on eligibility and processes, refer to the http://www.mbsonline.gov.au/internet/mbsonline/publishing.nsf/Content/mbsonline-telehealth-landing.htm