Have your say on updated guidelines for telehealth consultations

16 Dec 2022

Public consultation has opened on the Medical Board of Australia’s draft revised guidelines on telehealth consultations with patients.

The Medical Board of Australia (the Board) published Guidelines for technology-based consultations and an Information sheet - Inter-jurisdictional technology-based patient consultations in 2012-13. These guidance documents have been merged and updated in the draft revised Guidelines: Telehealth consultations with patients.

The revised guidelines recognise that telehealth provides great opportunities for access to, and delivery of healthcare, but that it is not appropriate for all medical consultations and should not be considered as a substitute for face-to-face consultations. The guidelines provide guidance to support good practice when using telehealth including that:

• the standard of care provided in a telehealth consultation must be safe and as far as possible meet the same standards of care as provided in a face-to-face consultation
• practitioners should be continuously assessing the appropriateness of the telehealth consultation and whether a direct physical examination of the patient is necessary.

The revised guidelines also provide new guidance on prescribing for a patient with whom a doctor has never consulted.

How you can have your say

Public consultation is open until 17 February 2023. We’ve published a consultation paper on our consultation webpage.

You can give feedback on the proposed revised guidelines by emailing written submissions marked ‘Consultation: revised telehealth guidelines’ to medboardconsultation@ahpra.gov.au by close of business on Friday 17 February 2023.

The Board generally publishes submissions received on its website to encourage discussion and inform the community and stakeholders. Published submissions will include the names of the individuals and/or the organisations that made them, unless confidentiality is expressly requested.

For more information

• Read the consultation paper
• Read the current guidelines