Temporal changes in chronic disease management in primary care in relation to telehealth policy changes…

Cohort studyFamily practice· Jun 2026

Temporal changes in chronic disease management in primary care in relation to telehealth policy changes: Australian whole-of-population interrupted time-series analysis.

Danielle C Butler, Nina Lazarevic, Grace Joshy … Rosemary J Korda

Primary Care Access & TelehealthCohort studyQ1IF 2.0

Monthly general practitioner chronic disease management uptake fell after Australia removed subsidized telephone services, but not after telehealth introduction.

Temporal changes in chronic disease management in primary care in relation to telehealth policy changes: Australian whole-of-population interrupted time-series analysis.

Danielle C Butler … Rosemary J Korda

Family practice · Jun 2026 · Q1 in Family Medicine

Background

Large-scale evidence on the extent to which this occurs to guide telehealth policy is limited.

Purpose

To examine temporal changes in uptake and timeliness of general practitioner chronic disease management (general practitioner chronic disease management) services in Australia following universal telehealth introduction (March 2020) and removal of subsidized telephone (but not video) general practitioner chronic disease management services (July 2021).

Methods

Whole-of-population cohort study of linked national claims and death data, 2018-2022.

Results

fewer patients per 1000 population used GP chronic disease care each month once phone consultations lost their subsidy

MD -4 (95% CI -6.30 to -1.70)

CI excludes the null - significant

More results

From 2018 to 2022, each month an average of 568 858 general practitioner chronic disease management services were delivered, with 25-43 users and 44-76 services per 1000 population aged 45-<85 per month.

More results

After universal telehealth introduction, general practitioner chronic disease management uptake remained stable, with similar trends pre- and early-pandemic.

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Conclusion · 1 of 2

Telehealth policies in Australia sustained access to chronic disease care during the pandemic.

Conclusion · 2 of 2

Limiting access to these services to video alone was associated with a greater than expected decline in use had the pandemic and introduction of telehealth not occurred.

Temporal changes in chronic disease management in primary care in relation to telehealth policy changes: Australian whole-of-population interrupted time-series analysis.

Temporal changes in chronic disease management in primary care in relation to telehealth policy changes: Australian whole-of-population interrupted time-series analysis.

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