The Telehealth Eligibility questions are a series of questions that screen patients for their Medicare eligibility. HotDoc also has the ability to write the answers of these questions back to your appointment book when the patient makes a booking.
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In this article |
How does Telehealth Screening work?
HotDoc Telehealth will allow your practice to use Online Bookings to create a telehealth appointment that is entered into your book. Alongside this, you can control who is able to book this type of appointment.
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From 1 November 2025, MyMedicare-registered patients will be eligible for Telehealth rebates even if they haven’t had an in-person appointment in the last 12 months. As such, they will no longer see the Medicare eligibility screening questions when booking a Telehealth appointment through HotDoc. |
For patients who are not registered with MyMedicare in your clinical software, the following will apply.
- If both telehealth mode and Patient Screening are enabled, a patient going through the online booking process can be effectively screened by answering some questions. The questions are based upon the criteria required to claim a telehealth appointment through Medicare.
- If they qualify based on their answers, they are then directed to book a rebated telehealth appointment.
- If they do not qualify based on their answers, they are then directed to book an alternative appointment type or contact the practice via phone.
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If they do not qualify based on their answers, clinics will also have the option to allow patients who don’t meet rebate requirements to make an appointment online.
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If enabled, the patient will be asked an additional screening question as shown below:
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If enabled, the patient will be asked an additional screening question as shown below:
- To turn on the screening questions, please see: How to create or edit a Telehealth consult.
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If you would like to add specific bulk billing information to your Telehealth appointment types, you can add a message to your appointment types that will appear when the appointment is selected. To do this, please see How do I add an alert message to appear when my appointment types are selected? |
What are the Medicare Rebate Eligibility questions?
For patients who are not registered with MyMedicare in your clinical software, the following will apply.
- If the Medicare Rebate Eligibility questions are turned on for the appointment type, the patient will be asked the following question upon selecting the appointment time:
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After selecting I will answer truthfully, they will be asked the following questions:
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Does the patient needing this appointment have a Medicare card?
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Is this consultation in regards to pregnancy counselling services or for sexual or reproductive health or bone borne viruses?
- Has the patient attended an in-person consult at your practice in the past 12 months?
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Are they less than 12 months old or experiencing homelessness?
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Does the patient needing this appointment have a Medicare card?
- If the patient answers no to any of the above questions, we will then suggest they attempt to make another appointment type or contact the clinic to discuss further:
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If the patient selects yes to the Medicare card question and yes to at least one of the other screening questions, they will be asked to verify their contact number and email address. If the pre-populated information is not correct, they can update it in these fields:
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After confirming their details, they will be asked to verify their appointment information one last time:
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After selecting Yes, book now, if the patient is successful in making the booking, they will see the following in their Appointments section:
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Once confirmed we will write the contact details of the patient as well as a summary of their answers to the questions into your appointment book:
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Please note: If you would like to add specific bulk billing information to your Telehealth appointment types, you can add a message to your appointment types that will appear when the appointment is selected. To do this, please see How do I add an alert message to appear when my appointment types are selected? |
All Patients (No Screening)
| As of October 1st, 2020, Medicare no longer require practices to bulk bill vulnerable or at-risk patients for Telehealth appointments. Please see this MBS Online Fact Sheet for more information. |
If you prefer, you can also choose for your Telehealth appointments to have no screening. Uncheck the box next to Screen patients for Medical eligibility to do so:
- This will allow a patient to make a Telehealth booking without any screening questions.
- This setting is recommended if you wish to privately bill Telehealth appointments.
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Please note: If you would like to add specific bulk billing information to your Telehealth appointment types, you can add a message to your appointment types that will appear when the appointment is selected. To do this, please see How do I add an alert message to appear when my appointment types are selected? |