Telehealth software is the purpose-built video tool a clinician uses to consult with a patient remotely — the digital equivalent of the consulting room, not the waiting room. At its simplest it connects clinician and patient over secure video so a consultation can happen when the two aren’t in the same place. Good telehealth software does that one job reliably and privately, to a clinical standard a general-purpose app was never designed for.
Telehealth is now a permanent, funded part of Australian healthcare, not a pandemic stopgap (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing). That permanence is exactly why the tool you use matters — it carries real clinical conversations, week in and week out.
What telehealth software actually does
Strip it back and telehealth software has one core job: get the patient and clinician into a private video call with as little friction as possible. Around that core, most platforms add:
- A way for the patient to join — ideally by tapping a link, with no app to download and no account to create.
- In-consult tools — screen share, secure chat, and the ability to share a photo or PDF (a pathology form, an image of a rash, a fact sheet).
- A waiting room or live dashboard so you can see the moment a patient arrives.
- A device check so the patient can test their camera and microphone before the appointment starts.
- Privacy and security controls suited to health information — encryption in transit, sensible data handling, and no recording by surprise.
What telehealth software generally does not do — and shouldn’t need to — is replace your practice management system. Booking, clinical notes, prescriptions and billing stay in the software your practice already runs. The telehealth tool is just the consult itself.
How it differs from Zoom, FaceTime and Teams
This is the question most clinicians actually ask. You can technically run a consult on a consumer video app. The catch is what those apps were built for: meetings and social catch-ups, not clinical care.
Purpose-built telehealth software differs in a few ways that matter:
- Patient access. Telehealth tools are built so a first-time, non-technical patient can join in one tap. Consumer apps often push people towards installing software, signing in, or being admitted from a lobby — the exact friction that makes consults start late or fail.
- Privacy and data handling. Health information is among the most sensitive personal information there is, and the Australian Privacy Principles expect you to take reasonable steps to protect it and to handle it transparently (OAIC). Consumer platforms route and store data in ways you don’t control and often can’t see.
- Recording and retention. A clinical tool should be clear about whether calls are recorded and what is kept. Many consumer apps make recording easy and store it in a cloud account outside your practice.
- Fit for the workflow. Telehealth software is shaped around a consult — identity, a waiting state, in-call sharing — rather than a boardroom meeting.
The Australian Digital Health Agency has published specific guidance on using online conferencing technologies securely for healthcare, reflecting that not every video tool is a safe fit for a clinical consult (Australian Digital Health Agency). For a fuller treatment of the popular-app question, see Is Zoom compliant for telehealth?
The biggest difference between telehealth software and a consumer video app isn’t picture quality — it’s everything around the call: how the patient joins, where the data lives, whether anything is recorded, and whether the tool was built for a clinical consult at all.
Australian hosting and privacy
Where consult data is stored is a real consideration. There’s no law that telehealth software must be hosted in Australia, but health information is sensitive, and disclosing personal information overseas carries extra obligations under the Privacy Act. Many practices simply prefer their patient data to stay in Australia under Australian privacy law, for both compliance comfort and patient trust.
This is one of the clearest dividing lines between platforms. Some are Australian-hosted; some are global products hosting data offshore. MedCall, for instance, runs its application, database and files in the AWS Sydney region and keeps consult data in Australia, with calls end-to-end encrypted and never recorded — you can read the detail on the security page.
What to expect — for the clinician and the patient
For the clinician, getting started usually means creating an account and, on a reputable Australian platform, being verified against the Ahpra register. From there a typical consult is: open the platform, start a call, and bring the patient in. The rest of your day — the schedule, the notes, the billing — happens where it always has.
For the patient, the best experience is almost invisible: a text message with a link, a tap, a camera preview, and a “join” button. No app, no password, no account to remember. If you want to understand the patient’s side in more depth, see Do you need an app for telehealth?
Where MedCall fits
MedCall is deliberately narrow. It does video consults for Australian clinicians, one-to-one or with up to 4 people — Australian-hosted, never recorded, with the patient joining by a texted link and no app or account. It doesn’t do scheduling or payments; it pairs with the practice software you already use rather than replacing it.
That focus won’t suit everyone. If you want an all-in-one paid suite with group rooms, built-in scheduling and payments, and a marketplace of clinical apps, platforms like Coviu cover far more ground. If what you actually need is the call itself, done simply at a flat price, that’s the gap MedCall is built for. There’s more on the trade-off in our guide to how to choose telehealth software.
The bottom line
Telehealth software is the purpose-built video layer of a remote consultation: it gets the patient in easily, keeps the data private, and stays out of the way of your booking and billing. The difference between it and a consumer video app isn’t cosmetic — it’s about patient access, privacy, recording and clinical fit. Decide what you need the tool to do (just the call, or an all-in-one suite), check where the data lives, and choose accordingly. For the government’s overview of telehealth in Australia, start with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.
Sources & further reading
This article is general information for Australian clinicians and patients and reflects the rules and sources current at the date of publication. It is not medical, legal or billing advice, and it is not a substitute for the official guidance of Services Australia, the Department of Health and Aged Care, AHPRA or your professional college. Always check the primary sources linked above for the current position.
The MedCall Team
MedCall is secure telehealth video software built and run by Telehealth Australia Group, a registered Australian telehealth practice. We write these guides for the clinicians who use MedCall every day.