What are the telehealth rules for GPs in Australia?

Where telehealth fits now

Telehealth in Australia went from a niche service to a mainstream one during the pandemic, and unlike some countries it has remained an established, ongoing part of general practice rather than being wound back entirely. There are permanent MBS telehealth items for eligible consultations, and telehealth now sits alongside in-person care as a normal option for suitable presentations.

For a UK or Irish GP, the clinical idea is familiar; most have consulted by phone or video. What is new is the Australian framework around it: which consultations are eligible, what items you bill, and the rules that govern them, all of which sit within the MBS and the wider way general practice differs. This guide is part of the Money and practice cluster within the complete relocation guide. Because telehealth policy is actively revised, confirm the items and rules in force on the Department of Health telehealth pages and MBS Online rather than trusting an old summary. What follows is the durable shape of how it works.

The MBS telehealth items

Telehealth consultations are billed against specific MBS telehealth items, distinct from the standard in-person consultation items. There are items for both phone and video, graded like in-person consultations by length and complexity, each with its own rebate and eligibility. When you consult by telehealth, you select the appropriate telehealth item rather than the face-to-face equivalent.

The telehealth items broadly mirror the in-person structure: shorter and longer consultation items, with the same time-and-complexity logic that governs a face-to-face level applied to its telehealth counterpart. It is the same schedule with a parallel set of items for remote care, and your practice software guides you to the right one, as with all MBS billing.

The existing-relationship rule

The single most important rule to understand is the existing-relationship requirement. For many general-practice telehealth items, the patient generally needs an existing and continuing relationship with you or your practice, commonly defined by having had a face-to-face service within a set prior period. The intent is to anchor telehealth in continuity of care rather than enabling disconnected, one-off remote consultations.

Registering a patient with your practice in MyMedicare is an alternative pathway that establishes the required relationship even without a recent in-person visit. There are also exceptions where the rule does not apply: patients under 12 months old, people experiencing homelessness, those affected by natural disasters, urgent after-hours care, and certain services such as blood-borne virus, sexual and reproductive health, and some mental health items. Because both the relationship definition and its exceptions are set by policy and can change, confirm the current requirement on the Department of Health and MBS pages before relying on it.

Phone vs video

Both phone and video telehealth are supported, but they are not interchangeable in the schedule: the available items, eligibility and rebates differ by mode and by consultation length, so the mode you use affects what you can bill. The clinical choice is the same judgement a UK GP already makes; the discipline is to bill the item that matches the mode and consultation you actually provided.

Prescribing by telehealth

You can prescribe during telehealth, and it is common, using electronic prescriptions that reach the patient or their pharmacy digitally. This connects telehealth directly to PBS prescribing: a telehealth consultation can result in a PBS script just as an in-person one can.

Telehealth prescribing is subject to the same clinical and regulatory standards as in-person prescribing, and good judgement about what is appropriate to prescribe without a physical examination still applies. Controlled or higher-risk medicines carry additional, partly state-based requirements, so confirm the current telehealth prescribing rules rather than assuming remote prescribing is unrestricted.

Billing telehealth

You select the correct MBS telehealth item and can bulk-bill or privately bill it subject to the item rules, exactly as you would an in-person service. The rebates and eligibility differ from face-to-face items, but the mechanics of choosing an item and a billing model are familiar once you know the standard system.

A telehealth item generates a rebate that flows into your gross the same way an in-person item does, and your percentage applies to it identically, so it feeds your earnings under the percentage-of-billings model. Some GPs deliberately build a telehealth session or two into their week, because it can be an efficient way to handle scripts, results and reviews without leaving gaps in the appointment book.

Using it well clinically

Telehealth suits follow-ups, results discussions, medication reviews, mental health support and many chronic-disease touchpoints, and it can improve access for working patients, those with mobility issues, and people in rural and remote areas where distance is a barrier. It also has limits, and part of using it well is knowing when a patient needs to be seen in person, a judgement UK GPs already exercise. It fits naturally alongside care plan work, and where you choose to work can shape how much telehealth features in your week.

Setting telehealth up in practice

The practical side of running telehealth is mostly handled by your practice, which already has the software, video platform and electronic-prescribing workflow in place. Your job is to learn how it records a telehealth consultation, generates the script and selects the item, as part of the same orientation that teaches you the rest of the MBS. Telehealth is covered by medical indemnity insurance in the normal way, but confirm your policy explicitly includes remote consulting, and note that a telehealth service still runs through your provider number and, for overseas-trained GPs, the location rules that govern where your billing counts.

Telehealth is not something to master before you arrive; it is one of the everyday tools you pick up once practising, and it counts as normal clinical work for CPD purposes. Understanding it early helps you picture the working week you are moving towards, covered more broadly in your first 90 days.

Sources

These are the primary sources behind this guide. Read them directly and confirm anything time-sensitive on the day.

Frequently asked questions