Some elderly rural cancer patients live on farms with limited connectivity, hundreds of kilometres from the closest computer and even further from their doctor.

These are the kinds of marginalised patients who will be helped by hard-fought new telehealth Medicare rebates, allowing for longer telephone consultations with specialists, medical oncologist Christopher Steer says.

The new Medicare items for longer, more complex consultations over the phone come into effect across Australia on November 1, adding to existing rebates for video telehealth appointments and short phone consults.

Associate Professor Steer, from Border Medical Oncology at the Albury-Wodonga Regional Cancer Centre in southern NSW, said it was common to hear from isolated patients who could not readily access either fa

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