Telehealth

Australia's Leaders in Telehealth Physiotherapy

Our Melbourne-based team are world leaders in telehealth. We can provide you with our expertise from the comfort of your own home, work, or wherever you like, no matter where you are in the world.

Do you, or your healthcare professional, want a second opinion about your injury or condition? Or do you have trouble getting to the clinic due work family and work commitments? We are here to help.

Progressive & Forward Thinking Online Physio

We are a progressive, forward thinking, and evidence-based clinic. We have provided telehealth services to people interstate and internationally since 2014, so that more people can access our unique expertise and physiotherapy team – our team’s >10-year experience providing telehealth is truly unique! Following the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more local people are also using our telehealth service, improving convenience for accessing our care.

Our physiotherapy team are world leaders in research and treatment of people with injuries and persistent pain conditions. Alongside treating patients, our team are active researchers including Professor Christian Barton who leads a telehealth program of research at La Trobe University. Our research projects involve development and testing of telehealth solutions to delivering quality physiotherapy services including patient education and advice, exercise guidance, and group exercise classes. This work, and that by others around the world, indicates telehealth can provide high value physiotherapy care. We have also produced highly accessed resources to support other allied health professionals to provide telehealth services, share via the TREK telehealth toolkit.

How does Telehealth Physiotherapy work?

Telehealth involves the use of a digital device (computer, tablet) or phone (mobile or landline) to provide the healthcare services you need. In most cases, both voice and video is used allowing the physiotherapist to:

Understand your problem and how it developed
Assess treatments you may have already tried which have and have not helped assessment
Assess the way you move
Provide you education and reassurance about how you can improve your pain or condition
Provide you guidance on how you can modify exercise, activities and other lifestyle factors to help you improve your pain or condition
Provide you with a new, or progress and existing home or gym based exercise program to help improve pain, or just to stay health and well
Provide you and others with a group exercise class (typically 3-4 people) which allows you to exercise with others. These group sessions can be individualised, while also providing you important social support

Who can telehealth help?

Our clinic philosophy emphasises a focus on active management (education and exercise) to ensure patients not only get better in the short term, but continue to improve and manage their injuries in the long term. Considering this, the majority of the services we offer work very well on telehealth, and in fact can be delivered with greater convenience using this method.

Most people using our services at Complete can benefit from telehealth consultations.

For existing patients

Your normal follow up appointments can be booked as, or changed to, a telehealth consultation during your next appointment at the clinic, by calling reception or online. You may consider this if it is difficult for you to get to the clinic for any reason, or if in the current environment, you wish to optimise social distancing. If you are unsure if telehealth is suitable for your situation, please discuss with our reception team and/or your treating therapist.

For new patients

You can call our reception team or book online as you normally would, requesting that your appointment is delivered via telehealth. If you are unsure if telehealth is suitable for your situation, please discuss with our reception team and they will help discuss, and consult with our physiotherapists.

Common questions

Telehealth Physiotherapy FAQ

What do I need to set up?

Most of our telehealth consultations take place via the secure online platform Zoom, which is our preferred software. However, depending on your preference, we can consider other platforms (e.g. Skype, WhatsApp). You will need a device with microphone and camera enabled (computer, tablet, phone). Additionally, you should set up for the consultation somewhere with good light, that is quiet, and ensure you have good internet access. If completing or progressing an exercise program you may like to set up in the room where you normally complete your exercises.

Our reception team are here to help you with any trouble shooting to ensure a smooth telehealth experience.

What do I do if it is my first time using telehealth?

For you first telehealth consultation, our reception team will contact you to complete a test run to help ensure you know how to connect and set up to talk and interact with your therapist.

What will the consultation involve?

Prior to your consultation, the Reception team will send a link to log onto the zoom video consultation, and you should aim to do so 5 minutes prior to your appointment time. Your physiotherapist will log in when they are ready, and reception will aim to let you know if they are running more than 5 minutes late. Once you and your physiotherapists are connected, your consultation is likely to include the normal questions and conversations about your condition, some assessment/tests they will ask you to perform in front of the camera, discussion about best treatment plan or progressions, guidance with how you can modify exercise and activity or other lifestyle factors, provision of an exercise program including active instruction using the camera and/or video and image examples. Any written information/education created by the physiotherapist created during the consultation will be emailed to you.

What are the fees for an appointment with our physiotherapist via telehealth?

The cost of telehealth consultations follow our standard clinic rates. Our usual minimum consultation time is 30 minutes, which allows your therapist to truly understand your problem and how it progressing following treatment, spend time providing you with quality education and guidance on how you can manage it better, and to provide you with and progress specific exercises. However, in some circumstances, short telehealth consultations (e.g. 15 minutes) can be effective, and prices would be adjusted accordingly. You can discuss this with reception or you treating therapist.

How do I make a payment if I don’t come into the clinic?

You are able to easily make payment over the phone with reception, using debit or credit card. Officially, there is no private health insurance, work cover, TAC or DVA rebate for telehealth. The Australian Physiotherapy Association has been working to lobby government and insurers to rectify this, with support from our team. We will send you an invoice for your payment, and we encourage to forward to your insurer for review and consideration.

What are the advantages of Telehealth Physiotherapy?

There is detailed understanding of patient beliefs and their understanding of their problems
Saving on travelling time
No travelling / parking cost
Treatment sessions are still a shared experience between the physiotherapist and the patient like our face to face consults
Convenience of health Provision within the home environment – This means the physio can see you undertake the exercises in your home environment with the equipment you have at home
There is equal quality of care as we can still deliver exercise and education via Telehealth which are key recommended treatments for any injuries. Exercise and strengthening programs are the key for long term recovery
There is evidence that the outcomes can be as good with face to face and Telehealth
Opportunity for patients living remotely /overseas to access their physiotherapist via digital health
Opportunity for patients who can’t attend the clinic to be able to access their physio from the comfort of their home or work

What are the challenges of Telehealth for physio?

One of the key challenges is not being able to put our hands on for assessment but in a vast majority of conditions diagnosis can be made easily with a good history and a couple of simple tests which we can ask you to do via Telehealth.
We have a strong emphasis at Complete Physio Richmond on helping you to manage you pain or injuries through exercise and lifestyle changes, and thus do not often need to provide hands on treatment to optimise your care – thus Telehealth rarely provides challenges to the treatments we provide. If massage or mobilisation techniques can help you, we will teach you how to perform them yourself.

Telehealth Physio Melbourne