Healthworks Healthcare chief executive Alan Hall described the situation as 'chronic' and called for doctors to have mandated periods where they supervise and train others.

He said a government push to have every doctor in Australia earn a fellowship was creating a blockage of doctors unwilling to go to regional areas.

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"Healthworks Kangaroo Flat is manned wholly and solely by overseas trained doctors," he said. "These are graduates who have come from universities in other countries.

"When a GP becomes qualified to work, they then have to be supervised with the aim to get a fellowship. What we have to have is supervisors and the supervisors are just not here.

"We're stuck because we can't get enough GPs to come to country areas because they know if they come here, they can't be supervised. So there is a blockage in the system. The situation is chronic."

Federal Member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters said the pandemic had made primary health harder to deliver.

She said a lack of GPs in regional areas, funding and resources combined to make the complex situation.

"Before the pandemic people were saying they were struggling to get in to see a GP. Now people are really struggling," she said. "Telehealth has helped, it helps with some consults but not all, a lot of people still need a face to face consult with their GP.

"Our GPS are under pressure. We need more of them and also need more funding in medicare to help our primary care delivery. Scott Morrison says time and time again says 'go talk to your GP' but there is no extra funding or supply for primary healthcare services."

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Mr Hall said doctors spending mandatory periods in regional areas would benefit the system.

"What I would like to see is a situation where GPs (are mandated) to come to rural areas for, say, five years - the first years after their original qualification," he said.

"At the same time you should have an arrangement whereby supervision from people - who have already had their fellowship for four years - have to maybe spend two yeas in a rural area. That would feed this chronic shortage we have.

"I have been here nearly 20 years and (this blockage) has been here for 20 years. It's not new, it's a situation which has been allowed to exist. The shortages have got worse and worse and worse as the years have gone by."

Healthworks Healthcare senior practice and finance manager Abdul Ali said most doctors that have earned their fellowship then move away leaving a shortage of medicos who can trained incoming overseas-trained doctors.

"That means we have lost that doctor who can supervise other doctors. This is the biggest challenge we are having," he said. "The issue is most of the doctors after seven to 10 years move around, especially if they are in regional areas."

Mr Ali said Healthworks has four doctors able to supervise but only two want to. He said the duties of a supervising doctors included a lot of administration work and required one-to-one supervision with newly-arrived doctors.

"Level one (supervision) goes for three to six months. Level two (trainees) are more experienced and have maybe worked 12 months in Australia," he said. "Doctors can supervise one or two level one doctors, or at level two they can supervise four.

"The issue is level one supervision is one-to-one, so every patient the doctor sees the supervisor also has to see to make sure they have made the right diagnosis. That takes a lot of time and energy.

"Supervising doctors do see other patients but they have to finish what they are doing, go to the training doctor's room and confirm their diagnosis. It is very challenging."

Mr Hall said telehealth medical services went some way to alleviating the demand for medical services but that it didn't replace the need for face-to-face consultations.

"Suddenly there was a huge demand, which was not possible to meet," he said. "Telehealth went a long way to meet it but, on the other hand, what is the real substitute for having a patient in a surgery. Not telehealth. You can work some things that way but not everything.

"The GPs virtually had to concentrate wholly and solely telehealth and a lot were doing it at home. So a lot were then not in the centre."

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Ms Chesters said there are a lot of ways the federal government could help the primary healthcare system.

"We need to increase the number of GPs in the regions," she said. "If you are wanting to recruit overseas doctors, you need to fix the training so they can come here and settle in and get on with being a GP.

"We also need to train more GPs in our regions. What is going on at the La Trobe Rural School of Health is a start but those (students) may not become GPs. So we need a better package around GPs (and) we need to provide resources like personal protective equipment and rapid-antigen tests."

Mr Ali said the lack of Australian-trained graduate doctors wanting to work as GPs was also a challenge.

"At a webinar recently I asked why we aren't getting Australian-trained graduates," he said. "All our GPs are form overseas, and they are very good, but we aren't seeing Australian GP graduates.

"They don't want to become GPs because they like that lifestyle and like working at hospitals. That is a problem.

"We have been told we will be flooded with Austalian-trained GPs - that was two or three years back but we didn't see one Australian-trained GP applying for positions we have at Healthworks."

Ms Chesters said the healthcare sector needed to consider a package that would encourage graduates to works as GPS.

"Right now medicare rebate is too low to attract locally trained doctors into GP services," she said. "They can earn more money by specialising and can pay off their debts sooner. They're being attracted into other fields or the hospital system. So we have got to look at the whole package.

"We need to work together as a sector and work with practices like this one who are willing to take registrars and students but don't have any coming here because of whats going on in broader system. It's a mess that federal government has had eight years to fix and they haven't."

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