Health officials should stop treating audio-only phone consults as an inferior form of telehealth, the RACGP says, claiming the stance “is not underpinned by strong evidence” and punishes marginalised patients.

The Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler, has ordered a review of Medicare-funded telehealth, due to report back by the end of the year, from the MBS Review Advisory Committee.

In its review submission, the RACGP said the official stance that video was superior to audio-only consults because of “richer information transfer” needed to be scrapped.

“Although a video consultation is sometimes considered the gold standard of telehealth due to the perceived benefits of having visual cues, research has found that health outcomes and patient satisfaction are generally comparable between video and telephone consultations,” the college’s submission stated.