Connecting Health Services With the Future: Telehealth Eligible Service Areas

From 1 July 2011, Medicare Rebates and Financial Incentives will be available for telehealth under the Connecting Health Services With the Future initiative. This page provides about where patients can receive MBS billed telehealth consultations.

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• Telehealth Eligible Areas
• Residential Aged Care & Aboriginal Medical Services

Telehealth Eligible Areas

Telehealth Eligible Areas are geographical areas where patients can receive telehealth services under the Government’s telehealth initiative, Connecting Health Services with the Future: Modernising Medicare by Providing Rebates for Online Consultations.

This system classifies Australia as either telehealth eligible or not telehealth eligible depending on whether the area is considered inner metropolitan (any area of Australia not classified as inner metropolitan is telehealth eligible).

The Telehealth Eligible Service Areas document (below) show the boundaries of these areas, which are consistent with those for the More Doctors for Outer Metropolitan Areas program.

• Telehealth Eligible Service Areas (PDF 849 KB)
• Telehealth Eligible Service Areas (National) (PDF 463 KB)

A map locator is currently provided on the Australian Government’s Doctor Connect website. Using this tool, you can identify whether any location in Australia is a Telehealth Eligible Area. The locator can be accessed from http://www.doctorconnect.gov.au/internet/otd/Publishing.nsf/Content/locator#metro

For the map to display telehealth information you may need to select the tick box for the metro layer on the right hand side of the screen.


To use the locator, you can enter an address and search the map, or click on an Australian location you are interested in (Note that this tool may incorrectly indicate that locations outside of Australia are Telehealth Eligible).

Residential Aged Care and Aboriginal Medical Services

Residents of Residential Aged Care Facilities, and patients of Aboriginal Medical Services face particular barriers to accessing specialist medical services regardless of where they live. In recognition of these barriers, Telehealth MBS Items may also be billed for patients in these categories.