ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2023
Changes in general practice use and costs with COVID-19 and telehealth initiatives: analysis of Australian whole-population linked data.
Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Clinicians' and patients' views and experiences on virtual hospital care: a systematic review of qualitative evidence.BMJ health & care informatics · 2026Pooled it
- Article
- The SILVER Platter for Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD): An IBD Pharmacy Technician-Led Subcutaneous Biologic Home Delivery Service Is Associated with Sustained Improvement in Adherence and Active Health Management.Digestive diseases and sciences · 2026Article
- Temporal changes in chronic disease management in primary care in relation to telehealth policy changes: Australian whole-of-population interrupted time-series analysis.Family practice · 2026Article
- Continuity of Care in General Practice in Australia: A Whole-Of-Population Serial Cross-Sectional Study.The Medical journal of Australia · 2026Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adult asthma-related health care utilization.The journal of allergy and clinical immunology. Global · 2026Article
- New and emerging drivers of ambulance demand.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Adult Asthma-Related Healthcare Utilization.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Factors that influence the uptake of virtual care solutions in Australian primary care practice: a systematic scoping review.JBI evidence implementation · 2025Article
- Evaluating the Digital Health Experience for Patients in Primary Care: Mixed Methods Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Research data use in a digital society: a deliberative public engagement.International journal of population data science · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, general practice in Australia underwent a rapid transition, including the roll-out of population-wide telehealth, with uncertain impacts on GP use and costs.
aimTo describe how use and costs of GP services changed in 2020 - following the COVID-19 pandemic and introduction of telehealth - compared with 2019, and how this varied across population subgroups. DESIGN AND
settingLinked-data analysis of whole-population data for Australia.
methodMulti-Agency Data Integration Project data for ∼19 million individuals from the 2016 census were linked to Medicare data for 2019-2020. Regression models were used to compare age- and sex-adjusted GP use and out-of-pocket costs over time, overall, and by sociodemographic characteristics.
resultsOf the population, 85.5% visited a GP in Q2-Q4 2020, compared with 89.5% in the same period of 2019. The mean number of face-to-face GP services per quarter declined, while telehealth services increased; overall use of GP services in Q4 2020 was similar to, or higher than, that of Q4 2019 for most groups. The proportion of total GP services by telehealth stabilised at 23.5% in Q4 2020. However, individuals aged 3-14 years, ≥70 years, and those with limited English proficiency used fewer GP services in 2020 compared with 2019, with a lower proportion by telehealth, compared with the rest of the population. Mean out-of-pocket costs per service were lower across all subgroups in 2020 compared with 2019.
conclusionThe introduction of widespread telehealth maintained the use of GP services during the COVID-19 pandemic and minimised out-of-pocket costs, but not for all population subgroups.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.