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Telehealth for health professionals

Information and support for staff, GPs and health services

Information for Barwon Health staff

Information for GPs and regional health services  

Using Healthdirect Video Call (telehealth) from home

To hold a telehealth appointment from home you will need:

  • A good connection to the internet
  • A private, well-lit room
  • Current version of
    • Google Chrome web browser on a desktop or laptop (Windows or Mac), or android phone
    • Safari web browser on an iPad or iPhone
  •  Camera, speakers and microphone (often already built into laptops and phones)

Clinicians

Make sure you are NOT launching your browser from within Citrix (the remote access application). You need to run it directly from your computer desktop to ensure audio and video will work.

Use the same platform as you use on site:

The logging in for clinicians help sheet is a useful resource for getting started.

You can find lots of support and troubleshooting resources here: https://help.vcc.healthdirect.org.au/conductavideocall

Patients still join the call by going to the Barwon Health Telehealth website (https://www.barwonhealth.org.au/telehealth) and clicking the link to your clinic.

Change to the MBS COVID-19 Telehealth item numbers – Public Specialist Clinics that are MBS billed

From 30 March 2020, the new temporary MBS bulk-billed telehealth item numbers for COVID-19 telehealth (video-call) and phone consultation items are available to all Medicare-eligible Australians for a wide range of consultations. The item numbers are general in nature and have no relation to diagnosing, treating or suspecting COVID-19. These item numbers must be bulk-billed and are available to GPs, other medical practitioners, specialists and consultant physicians (including psychiatrists), nurse practitioners, participating midwives, allied health and mental health providers.

Where practicable, efforts should be made to obtain the patient’s signature for assignment of benefits. However, under exceptional circumstances such as these, the practitioner’s documentation in the clinical notes of the patient’s agreement to assign their benefits full payment for the service will be sufficient. Refer to the MBS online fact sheet - COVID-19 Bulk Billed MBS Telehealth Services Provider FAQ for more information on this.

All COVID-19 MBS fact sheets which include information about the item numbers for each profession can be found at MBSOnline

Last Modified: Monday, 21 February 2022