Dial The Doc Review 

Bottom Line:

Dial The Doc is a good alternative if you cannot get a timely telehealth consultation with your own GP. It is a relatively new service that, at the time of review, gives you access to only one GP. 

Dial The Doc is a mid-range telehealth provider with extended hours, including evenings and weekends. It also offers alternative consultations at a premium cost. These types of services are provided by only a few competitors, including Healthy Life. The relatively new Dial The Doc telehealth service is provided solely by General Practitioner (GP) Dr Jeremy Allen at the time of this review.

Pros:

1. Greater continuity than other providers, as the same GP is available for each consult.

2. Option to schedule bookings in advance at a preferred time, similar to premium providers such as Prime Medic.

3. Alternative consultation option, providing an integrative medicine approach, similar to Healthy Life.

Cons: 

1. Limited doctor availability due to a single doctor represented, although much greater availability than small providers with several healthcare professionals, such as Healthcare from Anywhere. 

2. The site does not immediately clarify that it represents only one GP currently. 

3. 24/7 availability stated on site only refers to the booking availability – not the doctor’s schedule. (This is not immediately obvious, but the booking site shows much more limited hours.)

Focus on GP Telehealth Consultations Plus Alternative Consultation

Delivered by one GP at the time of my review, Dial The Doc offers comprehensive telehealth services comparable to Our Sage. While neither bulk billing nor medication delivery is available, the telehealth provider provides both video and phone consults at a time of your choosing. (All consultations need to be booked in advance, meaning availability depends on demand, and no priority service is available. The latter is a standard feature of most larger telehealth providers, including Hola Health.)

Online Prescriptions: eScripts are available as part of the GP consult. They are sent to you by SMS. No pharmacy/ delivery service available.

Prescription: Alternative medicine consultations and prescriptions are mentioned on the site, but there is no further information available

Medical Certificate: Medical certificates can be requested separately from the GP consult option. They are sent to you via email.

Telehealth Consultation: GP telehealth consultations last 15 minutes. They are all delivered by Dr Jeremy Allen.

Specialist Referral: Specialist referrals can be requested during your doctor’s consultation.

Simple, Mid-Range Pricing with Premium Option

Pricing is kept simple at Dial The Doc, with most services requiring a 15-minute GP telehealth consultation with Dr Jeremy Allen. These are currently priced slightly above most other GP telehealth providers, such as Our Sage. The only exception is medical certificates, which are offered at less than half the cost, but still slightly more expensively than at, for example, the specialised medical certificate provider Sicky.

Appointments are booked in advance through the Hot Doc booking system, meaning your wait time depends entirely on Dr Jeremy Allen’s availability. There are not many reviews available to verify the service’s response time, owing to its relatively new and small-scale operations [1].

Here is the pricing breakdown:

• GP telehealth consults cost $55. This includes prescriptions, specialist referrals, pathology requests and general health advice.

• Medical certificates cost $25.

• Alternative medicine consultations and prescriptions cost $100.

Simple Site With Some Mistakes in Copy

At first glance, the site is simple, well-laid out, and to the point. It is relatively easy to find key information, thanks to the top menu. However, upon closer examination, several of the described services or menu items are somewhat misleading. This includes the 24/7 availability, which refers only to the booking site, not the doctor’s availability, the reference in the copy to a “team of doctors” and top menu option of “Our Doctors” which leads only to Dr Jeremy Allen’s profile (upon closer inspection, he is the sole doctor currently available and it is his business [1]), and the mention of alternative consultations (priced at $100), which are not described further anywhere on the page and are not available on the external booking site, Hot Doc.

Compared to similar, smaller, and less established providers, such as Healthcare from Anywhere and Midoc, the site still looks and feels much more professional. The booking process is both straightforward to follow and complete.

Unfortunately, some of the questions I was looking for answers to under FAQs were only repeated standard copy-and-paste responses, not actual answers.

Overall, the exaggerated availability and size of the team, lack of customer support options, hours of operation and incorrect FAQs are not unusual for this type of small telehealth provider. Based on the few reviews available on Facebook [2], the site may not reflect the high-quality care delivered by this service.

Privacy Policy Does Not Cover Sensitive Patient Data

Where most telehealth providers I have reviewed provide a privacy policy containing information about how your data is processed, stored, encrypted, shared, and kept safe in accordance with the Australian Privacy Act, Dial the Doc’s privacy policy neither mentions Australian privacy laws nor your rights.

The privacy policy explains how the site operates, how comments are handled, and how to prevent uploading media that contains location data. This is not typically featured in the privacy policies of telehealth providers.

In fact, the information in the Dial The Doc policy seems to refer primarily to general web data as opposed to your more sensitive health data.

For example, the header “Who We Share Your Data With” here refers to a password reset, whereas other sites mention third-party providers or marketing purposes.

Dial the Doc does, however, give you the option to receive a file of the personal data that the site holds on you. It is unclear whether this also refers to your financial and health data.

To date, I have only come across one telehealth provider with less information about how your health data is processed, stored, encrypted, and shared. I’m referring to Healthcare from Anywhere, which was also only recently established and is a similarly small operation.

Customer Support via Web Form Only

Customer support options at Dial The Doc telehealth service are limited to a web form. There is no information available on expected response times or hours of operation. Similarly, no customer service reviews are available yet. Given that this is a new and small business at the time of the review, I expect that operating hours mirror the doctor’s working hours, and responses may not be instant. This limited customer service availability is similar to that of other small telehealth providers. In contrast, most larger, well-established providers offer multiple ways of contacting support and clearly outline expectations regarding response times.

New Single-GP Telehealth Provider with Extended Hours and No Bulk Billing

Dial The Doc is a good alternative if you cannot get a timely telehealth consultation with your own GP. It is a relatively new service at the time of review and gives you access to only one GP.

Having the same GP available for each telehealth consultation allows you to build a rapport and provides benefits in terms of continuity of care. However, where Medicare covers telehealth consultations with your primary doctor, if you have seen them in person in the last 12 months, it appears that Dial The Doc does not offer any rebates.

There is also no customer service or virtual receptionist available to assist, which is a downside if you have any questions before or after your consultation.

All information on this page is independently researched and verified. We have made every effort to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information in this review. However, please ensure you check the most current pricing and service information before booking. 

Telehealth is recommended in addition to primary care and cannot provide the same accuracy as in-person physical assessments by your GP. Consult your primary healthcare provider for comprehensive and personalised medical advice.

[1] https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=37140626008

[2] https://www.facebook.com/100095435315417/about/?_rdr