With the emergence of COVID-19 there has been a huge shift for society in general and innovation in many industries. One of the most exciting changes in healthcare in Australia is the ability to now perform Telehealth (either phone or video) consultations with GPs and Specialists.

These new arrangements, however, create new decisions for patients – in particular who to consult. Along with traditional local General Practices offering Telehealth there are also some online organisations who advertise heavily. With this in mind, below we list 5 reasons why we believe you should continue to access your regular General Practice for your Telehealth care.

Continuity of Care. This is a cornerstone of general practice. The ability to be seen at the same practice long term has proven benefit. Fascinatingly, not only are you less likely to end up in hospital if you go to the same practice, it is also associated with a lower risk of dying. For those of you who like to read scientific articles, here are a couple of references for this point – https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/6/e021161 , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4979943/

The ability of your Doctor to view your entire medical record, including recent visits to the practice, allergies, medical history, current medications, previous investigations, referrals and letters from Specialists. How many of us can recall all of the aforementioned points? If you are a long-term patient of a practice, your Doctor will have this information at their fingertips to help inform their decision on both diagnosis and management of your condition.

The ability of your Doctor to review you physically if you need it. There are many problems that we are now finding can be safely and effectively managed via Telehealth. However, there are certainly times that during a Telehealth consultation we will determine that an examination with your Doctor is required. Should you use a purely online service, the only available advice would be to either present to another GP and duplicate the history you just went through, or to perhaps attend an emergency department. Clearly seeing the GP you have just told your history to is advantageous.

The ability to choose which Doctor you see. A number of the online platforms do not give you an option which Doctor you are assigned to. Doctors come in varying levels of experience, qualifications, special interest areas and not to mention personality! If you have a specific problem, you may well benefit from seeing a GP who has an interest in that area. In our experience, almost all bricks and mortar General Practices have both their GPs’ qualifications and special interest areas available on their websites. Obviously if you have met your doctor before in person you will both be familiar with each other’s communication styles which makes talking to them on the phone or via video consultation easier as well.

The ability of your Doctor to follow-up results and letters back from Specialists. Many studies over the years have shown that people on average recall about half of what is recommended in a medical consultation. (See here if you want a recent study showing this https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191940#abstract0). When you get a referral from your regular GP, once the Specialist has seen you, they typically will return a report to the referring doctor, usually with a diagnosis and management plan. This is typically read by your GP, and then recommendations are put in your file, along with reminders regarding required follow-up, and changes may be made to your medical history and medications. Having this valuable health information in the hands of a practice you will see long term is beneficial, compared to having this information sent to a Doctor you will likely never meet in person and possibly never speak to again.