Tunstall partners with home doctor service
Seniors stand to benefit from a new alliance between telehealth specialists Tunstall Healthcare and the National Home Doctor Service, which provides after-hours, bulk-billed home visits.
Seniors stand to benefit from a new alliance between telehealth specialists Tunstall Healthcare and the National Home Doctor Service (NHDS), which provides after-hours, bulk-billed home visits for urgent or episodic needs.
The partnership allows Tunstall to coordinate after-hours non-emergency doctor visits for clients in their home with the NHDS, which comprises 600 doctors who attend to patients in their place of residence including residential aged care facilities.
The new collaboration, which became effective on 1 August, comes a month after Tunstall began a partnership with medical ID jewellery service MedicAlert Foundation.
The alliance aims to reduce unnecessary ambulance call outs and enable older clients and those with disabilities to receive a visit from the doctor in the comfort and safety of their own home, according to Tunstall.
“The after-hours home doctor service is a brilliant offering for our clients, particularly for those who are unwell when their regular GP is closed, or those who sustain a minor injury at night or on weekends and don’t otherwise require an ambulance,” said Tunstall health services delivery manager Sharryn Gannon.
The NHDS, which has made 1 million patient visits in the past year, offers continuity of care with the patient’s regular GP by sending them a clinical report immediately after an after-hours home visit. It also provides after hours, bulk-billed care, which Tunstall said was something its clients could now benefit from as part of the connected healthcare service in their homes.
NHDS chief executive officer Ben Keneally said the alliance was mutually beneficial to both organisations as well as to people in the community.
“The partnership with Tunstall Healthcare is a great value-added service offering for their clients and will also promote our service to those vulnerable people in the community who are in most need of this kind of service,” he said.
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Wow, I think it is so awesome that a home doctor service is partnering with Tunstall. In my opinion, that will really help speed up the process of billing for those patients. In fact, it will be interesting to see how fast patients can be billed before and after this partnership goes into effect. Either way, I hope both of these companies continue to thrive!