Equitable psychiatry, telehealth, and the COVID-19 pandemic: Analysis of national data.

ABSTRACT:

Background

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was foreseen that the number of face-to-face psychiatry consultations would suffer a reduction. In order to compensate, the Australian Government introduced new Medicare-subsidized telephone and video-linked consultations. This study investigates how these developments affected the pre-existing inequity of psychiatry service delivery in Australia.

Methods

The study analyses five and a half years of national Medicare data listing all subsidized psychiatry consultation consumption aggregated to areas defined as Statistical Area level 3 (SA3s; which have population sizes of 30 k-300 k). Face-to-face, video-linked and telephone consultations are considered separately. The analysis consists of presenting rates of consumptio

SUBMITTER: Yeatman T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10014820 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature