As more cases of COVID-19 are confirmed in rural and remote areas, the widening of bulk-billed telehealth to the whole population - and a doubling of the bulk-billed incentive for all consultations - is greatly welcomed.

We also welcome additional incentive payments to help practices to continue to provide face-to-face consultations.

And with Stage 5 of the Government’s telehealth announcements expected any day, there is more to come.

The Government’s announcement of these measures is in no small part due to the ongoing advocacy work being undertaken by RDAA and ACRRM on behalf of rural doctors and their communities.

Your feedback to our organisations has been essential to this process. It continues to be immensely important that we hear of your immediate concerns, so we can feed this information directly to the Ministers and senior policy advisors. You can contact us via these email addresses: ACRRM CEO, Marita Cowie m.cowie@acrrm.org.au - and RDAA CEO, Peta Rutherford - ceo@rdaa.com.au.

In this COVID-19 update, you will find links to more information on the telehealth and bulk-billing announcements.

We urge you to use telehealth wherever possible, to reduce the risk to patients and health professionals of contracting coronavirus. However, it is also important that face to face consultations continue to be provided for patients who require physical assessment or diagnostic testing.

Each week, as part of the Rural and Remote Response to COVID-19, we are also doing some strong public health messaging, in addition to that produced by RDAA and ACRRM individually. This week our message will focus on 'flattening the curve'. While there have been some positive signs of this, now is not the time for communities to become complacent. As a result, we will be continuing to reinforce the importance of social distancing.

Finally, this is a very stressful time for all health professionals – particularly those working in the bush. Please look after yourself and don’t be shy about talking with someone – whether that is a colleague or someone else – if you are experiencing mental health concerns.

Both ACRRM and RDAA have free counselling services available to members – please make the most of these at this difficult time. Links to these services can be found in this newsletter.

Finally, the Federal Government has provided some financial support to assist ACRRM and RDAA in delivering COVID-19 resources and communications to rural doctors as part of this project. We would like to thank Ministers Hunt and Coulton for their support and recognition of the work we have committed to in supporting doctors and other health professionals working in rural and remote communities.

Best wishes
Dr Adam Coltzau
Clinical lead, RDAA and ACRRM Rural and Remote Response