Bottom Line:HelloGP boasts a wide range of services at predominantly premium prices and a polished site. However, the provider does not quite deliver the high-quality customer support, speed and service that patients expect from a premium provider.
Feature |
Details |
Website | https://hellogp.com.au |
Phone Number | Fax 08 7082 2122 |
Services Offered | Doctors’ consults, medical certificates, eScripts, specialist/ pathology/ radiology referrals, weight management, and alternative therapies |
Response Time | Within one hour, a 30-minute priority booking is available. |
Price Range | $44 - $99 |
Mobile App | HelloGP app for Android and iOS |
Operating Hours | 24/7 stated, but the booking form offers 6 am – 10 pm slots only |
The service list on the HelloGP website is comprehensive and also includes additional services, such as weight management and alternative therapies. This places HelloGP in the top tier of telehealth providers, comparable to services such as Healthy Life. However, these services do not have a booking option associated with them.
HelloGP does not offer either bulk billing or mental health treatment plans, and even incorrectly states that bulk billing is not available via private telehealth providers. Many other providers, including Hola Health, offer variations of both.
Despite offering alternative medicines, similar to Healthy Life, HelloGP does not provide any medication delivery.
Online Prescriptions: Online prescriptions must be booked through a doctor’s consultation. Repeat and new eScripts are available.Â
Blood Test Referrals: Specialist, pathology, and radiology referrals can be requested during a doctor’s consult. They are issued “promptly”.
Doctor Consults: Doctors’ consults may be delivered by GPs as stated in some parts of the websites or by AHPRA–registered doctors not registered with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)[6], as indicated in the explainer video. Their cost can be booked as next-available or priority consult or scheduled in advance.
Weight Loss Support: Weight management is advertised as part of the services, but no further information is available.Â
Medical Certificate: Medical certificates require a doctor’s consultation. They cannot be backdated and are available for work, uni, school, and carers.
Alternative Therapies: Alternative therapies are similarly advertised on HelloGP’s site and specified as plant medicine and medicinal cannabis scripts. No further information is available on the booking page. On HelloGP’s LinkedIn page, the service was advertising for a cannabis medicine specialist as recently as a month ago [4].
Pricing is not available on the site until you start the booking process, select your appointment type, condition, and scheduling option. At this point, all services are charged at $44 for the next available appointment/ scheduled in advance, and $99 for priority bookings. This means that all the more basic services, such as medical certificates, repeat scripts, and referrals, are charged at a premium price compared to most providers, like Updoc, which often differentiate between services and offer a wider price range. The priority booking is also more expensive than at comparable telehealth providers, such as Our Sage, which charges $65 and provides shorter wait times.
According to the reviews I found on Google, which seemed genuine (left by reviewers with more than one review) [3], wait times at HelloGP can exceed 8 hours for the next available appointment. This is unusually long for a private telehealth provider and more in line with the fully bulk billed 13SICK, which sometimes takes longer during times of high demand.
Where all telehealth services I reviewed offered at least part of their pricing available on their website, HelloGP does not disclose its pricing until the booking process. This is not keeping the provider aligned with industry best practices and guidelines around transparent pricing.
At first glance, the HelloGP website looks well-designed and comprehensive. In keeping with other premium providers, such as Prime Medic, the site’s functionality is of a high standard. For example, the service explanations include links to related services, common FAQS for the relevant page and linked blog posts with helpful information.
However, when digging deeper into some of the information provided, for example, in the FAQs, the copy is at best misleading, claiming (incorrectly), for instance, that Mental Health Treatment Plans cannot be bulk billed by telehealth providers, and that Medicare regulations do not allow telehealth providers to offer bulk billing – also untrue.
Other information that does seem misleading is the site’s mention of a team of founding doctors. The team page lacks details about any of them and instead displays unrelated information. Most telehealth providers establish authority and trustworthiness by either mentioning select doctors, such as their founders or managers, on Instant Script, or by providing details about a list of their doctors.
The booking process looks pretty straightforward and optimised. The language used is clear, and the options are presented in very few steps. It is easy to upload documentation, add notes and schedule your appointment.
In summary, while the HelloGP site looks and feels very polished, there are inconsistencies in the quality of the data provided and some aspects of the functionality that detract from the overall professional image. The lack of pricing details and booking information for clearly advertised services, such as weight management and alternative therapies, will hopefully be remedied with the business’s recent recruitment activity [4].
HelloGP’s privacy policy is comprehensive and clearly outlined on their website. It is explained in plain and simple terms. The privacy policy ticks most of the boxes that other telehealth providers also mention:
This means that HelloGP’s privacy processes are likely robust and of a high standard. They also surpass those of other recently established smaller providers, such as Healthcare from Anywhere.
However, there are two notable omissions in the privacy policy:
There are three ways of contacting HelloGP’s customer support team: by web form, email, or fax. None of these allow for a quick response, although the web form states that the business will typically respond within minutes.
Furthermore, there are no customer service operating hours (or business hours, in fact) stated on the website. This is somewhat unusual for a comprehensive telehealth provider. Most providers, such as Hola Health, offer access to a live chat and/or phone number, as a large number of services can quickly result in a higher demand for support. In the available Google reviews [3], several genuine-sounding one-star reviews complained about a lack of responsiveness and long wait times for any response from the business. This led to customers not receiving the expected level of service, or even none at all, and refunds.
Based on the apparent lack of an actual physical office and customer service staff [2] [5], this appears to be a small-scale operator with potential limitations in customer support options.
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.Â
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.