The former star for Benalla in the Ovens and Murray Football League has been battling stage four metastatic melanoma for two years.

The cancer has spread to his brain, liver, lungs, lymph nodes and bones.

"I couldn't drive for 12 months because I had a brain tumour," he said.

Mr Greaves, 61, relies heavily on telehealth consultations, attending appointments via both phone calls, and FaceTime video about once a month.

Living at Milawa meant Mr Greaves used to make a two-hour round trip to Albury for his regular appointments.

"Sometimes, he (the specialist) was doing telehealth to save me driving up, and it saved me two hours a day," he said.

"It's a good saving for the person who's crook."

Mr Greaves said telehealth consults were particularly important for the sick and elderly.

It is a message doctors across the country are also promoting.

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Keeping government-subsidised telehealth consultations beyond June 30 was a recommendation made by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) in its pre-Federal Budget submission.

RACP president and respiratory physician Professor John Wilson said that without the option of telehealth phone consultations, many patients would be cut off from their specialist care provider.

"If these MBS phone items are not carried forward beyond June 30, it will be the elderly, those with less advanced technical knowledge, some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, some people living with disability, and people in rural and remote locations who will suffer," he said.

"A silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic was the way it opened up a way of improving access to specialist care for everyone through telehealth. People in regional and rural areas struggle to travel to specialist clinics, and some may simply not have access to or knowledge of video-conferencing technology."

Mr Greaves said the telehealth consultations had helped him to keep track of upcoming treatments. He believes both sides of government should look into telehealth for delivering accessible specialist care.

With an in-person appointment, Mr Greaves said that he could end up having to wait up to 45 minutes to see the oncologist.

"Telehealth is a lot quicker than actually going into his office and seeing him (the oncologist), because it was pretty direct," he said.

"There's a lot of people now relying on this new system that we've got, it's pretty vital for people with chronic diseases."

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