A year ago medicare stopped giving rebates for telephone consultations. To qualify for a rebate you must have seen the doctor face-to-face (FTF) within the year before the telephone consultation. This is totally unfair to people who live in regional/rural areas, who are patients of doctors like myself, who have skill not available locally. If you live near here, Caloundra or North Lakes say, it is not too difficult to make a FTF appointment. If you live at Chinchilla, or Mackay for example, it is not so easy. You may be facing an 8 hour journey one way. How wise is this in the time of Covid, anyway, when we are encouraged to stay home. Some of my regional patients have been seeing me for more than 20 years. So again, country people are being punished again. What bureaucrat thought up this dumb policy.

I suggest rural people contact their local representatives and point out how unfair this is. There is an election coming up, so this may be a good time to get noticed. If enough people complain, this unjust rule may be corrected.