Summary
Date: 16 November 2022
The RACGP has provided a submission to the Standing Committee on Health, Aged care and Sport’s inquiry into long-COVID and repeated COVID infections.
In the submission the RACGP recommends:
- GPs are acknowledged as being best placed to provide coordinated care for patients with long COVID
- current inadequacies in the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) to support patients with long COVID must be addressed
- an agreed definition of long COVID be established as an essential component of a plan to support appropriate assessment, diagnosis and management
- that inequities be addressed to ensure all patients, irrespective of location or social factors, have access to best-practice medical care and support
- long COVID data is captured in primary care to understand the breadth and impact of this chronic condition in Australia and standards are implemented to create consistent clinical coding to support consistent data capture in electronic medical records
- funding is directed to general practice research into long COVID, with GPs leading this research and the interpretation of primary care data.