Open AccessAustralian private practice metropolitan telepsychiatry during the COVID-19 pandemic: analysis of Quarter-2, 2020 usage of new MBS-telehealth item psychiatrist services
Author(s) -
Jeffrey Cl Looi,
Stephen Allison,
Tarun Bastiampillai,
William Pring,
Rebecca Reay
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
australasian psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.444
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1440-1665
pISSN - 1039-8562
DOI - 10.1177/1039856220975294
Subject(s) - telehealth , quarter (canadian coin) , telepsychiatry , telemedicine , medicine , pandemic , context (archaeology) , covid-19 , videoconferencing , metropolitan area , family medicine , medical emergency , health care , multimedia , disease , political science , paleontology , archaeology , pathology , biology , computer science , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law , history
The Australian Commonwealth Government introduced new psychiatrist Medicare-Benefits-Schedule (MBS)-telehealth items in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to assist with previously office-based psychiatric practice. We investigate private psychiatrists' uptake of (1) video- and telephone-telehealth consultations for Quarter-2 (April-June) of 2020 and (2) total telehealth and face-to-face consultations in Quarter-2, 2020 in comparison to Quarter-2, 2019 for Australia.