Practice Policies

Standard Cancellation Policy

When you book an appointment, the practitioner reserves the whole hour (or half-hour) especially for you. It is very difficult or impossible for us to allocate the time to a different patient on short notice. Therefore, we would appreciate as much notice as possible so that we can offer the appointment to another patient.

If you need to cancel or reschedule your psychiatry or psychology counselling appointments, you are required to give two full business days’ (48 business hours) notice. For example, for a Tuesday appointment at 9:00 AM, you should let us know no later than 5:00 PM on the previous Thursday. Otherwise, the following cancellation fee applies.

0 - 24 business-hours notice or non-attendance: Full fee
24 - 48 business-hours notice: 50% of the fee

Generally, all fees must be paid before further appointments can be scheduled. The cancellation fees are not eligible for a rebate from Medicare.

Different cancellation policy applies to psychological assessment and testing appointments and new psychiatry bookings.

Please note:

Business hours are 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM, Mondays-Fridays. Public holidays and planned clinic closures (e.g Christmas break) are not considered business days/hours.
Clinic can be notified of cancellations via phone or email.
We endeavour to remind you of your appointments through SMS and/or email reminders but these should not be relied upon. It is your responsibility to keep track of any appointments you have made.
The cancellation policy is in place to deal with unforeseen emergencies.
We ask you to make appointments only if you intend to keep them. If there are too many cancellations (even within the above policy) we reserve the right not to offer further appointments.
If cancellation fees are owing, access to appointments may be restricted and future appointments may be cancelled.
Please be familiar with our Prescription/script policy below.
We do reluctantly use a debt collection service for unpaid invoices and you will be responsible for all fees incurred.

Cancellation Policy - Psychological Assessments

This cancellation policy applies to psychological assessment and testing appointments (assessment service).
The policy that applies would be communicated to you in your original appointment booking emails. Please refer to your emails.

Cancellation Policy - New Psychiatry bookings

This cancellation policy applies to new psychiatry patient bookings (‘initial psychiatric assessment’ service).
The policy that applies would be communicated to you in your original appointment booking emails. Please refer to your emails.

Script (prescription) Policy

Scripts (including repeats) can only be provided during appointments. Ongoing medical care requires regular review, assessment and monitoring.

Mental health can change rapidly, and as such, the medical needs of patients may also change. Additionally, certain medications require close monitoring and adjustment than others.

Generally, your Psychiatrist would request you to book review appointments based on your treatment needs and medication plan. Therefore, if you cancel/reschedule your appointment, you will need to ensure your medication needs are met.

Requests for scripts to be posted, faxed or collected outside of appointments will not be accommodated.

Electronic Scripts

If these are issued with repeats, your pharmacy should offer to add the details to their system or offer to send you the tokens for repeats. Some pharmacies allow you to manage the repeats within their App. We are generally unable to resend scripts, and if you require us to re-send (i.e the same script that was originally issued), there will be additional administration fees.

Fee Payment Policy

Payment is required in full on the day of consultation in cash, EFTPOS or credit card (Mastercard or Visa). Credit card payments will incur a transaction fee between 0.5% and 1.8%. There is no transaction fees for EFTPOS or PayID.

For Telehealth appointments, a valid credit card needs to be stored in our secure clinic system. The card may be charged up to 7 days in advance. There will be a surcharge of approximately 1.1%- 1.8% for credit card transactions. While you must store a valid credit card in the system for Telehealth appointments, if you wish us not to charge the stored credit card, you may pay the fees 7 days prior to your appointment using bank transfer or PayID and notify us accordingly. Clinic reserves the right to cancel the appointments if payments are not made 7 days before the appointment. For psychotherapy patients, different payment arrangements may be in place as agreed with clinic.

Phone Calls

Calls from medical professionals, referrers and hospitals will be given priority and returned when our practitioners are able to. Please note our practitioners are usually busy with appointments and work only certain days, and therefore may not be able to return calls on the same day.

Our practitioners are usually with back-to-back patients, so generally, they are unable to speak with patients on the phone. And for a number of legal reasons, they may not give advice over the phone. If you have any specific questions regarding your treatment, we encourage you to book an appointment.

Emails

We encourage referrals and other supporting documentation related to appointments to be sent via fax or via email. If sending by email, we encourage it to be encrypted.

While our practitioners may communicate with referring practitioners and GPs relating relevant queries via email, any in-depth discussion about treatment plans, etc., will need to be conducted while the patient is present at our consulting room during an appointment.

Patient Emails

Reading and writing emails is extremely time-consuming, so we do not encourage communicating via email with patients/families/carers unless it is related to appointments or short queries.

Our practitioners are generally unable to provide medical advice over email. If you have any specific questions regarding your treatment, we encourage you to book an appointment or discuss them during your next booked appointment.

Generally, any documents/updates you sent would be filed under the patient’s records to be reviewed/discussed during your next appointment with your practitioner.

If any emails require the practitioner’s input or require the practitioner to read emails outside of the appointments, these would be charged at their standard consultation rate as per the current fee list at 5-minute intervals. This is notwithstanding that we are unable to provide medical advice. These would not be eligible for Medicare rebates.

Please also refer to our Privacy Policy on our website.

Requests for documents

Any request for letters/Documents/Medical certificates, form-filing, etc., needs to be discussed during consultation. Short letters, such as Medical certificates, can be completed during the session.

Reading and writing documents are extremely time-consuming, so we cannot generally accept requests for letters/documents outside of appointment times.

Any documentation that cannot be usually completed during your appointment will incur additional fees. These would be charged at their standard consultation rate as per the current fee list at 5-minute intervals. Please note these can only be provided if you are a current patient and were reviewed by our practitioners recently as per your treatment plan. This is completely at the discretion of the practitioner. These would not be eligible for Medicare rebates.

Request for Information (by school, psychologists, etc).

Requests for information from other parties about the patient needs need to be done via email or fax with the correct consents from the patient/parents attached. They need to specify the information needed. Only the clinical letters/reports already completed as part of consultations in prior appointments will be provided.

If a discussion is required with our practitioners, please contact the family to book an appointment that’s mutually convenient so that our practitioners can discuss with the school during the appointment.

Late Arrivals

In order to provide a fair and timely service to all of our patients, we require that patients who have made a booking arrive promptly for their appointment. If you arrive up to 15 minutes late, your appointment duration will be shortened. Notwithstanding the reduced time, you are responsible for the full fee of the booked appointment time slot as this time was reserved for you.

If you arrive more than 15 minutes late, the appointment would not go ahead due to time constraints. The appointment will be considered as non-attendance and the associated cancellation/non-attendance fee will be charged.

Separated Parents Policy

At our practice, our practitioners’ focus is on the medical, emotional and psychological well-being of the children they treat. Some of our patients who are children come from separated families. Conflict and communication breakdown within families can limit collaboration with health care providers and impact optimal treatment outcomes for the child.

If there is a court order restricting either parent’s involvement in their child’s care, please ensure you provide these court orders at your first visit to the practice. It is the parents’ obligation to provide the clinic with a copy of any relevant legal documents or court order.

Payment is to be made on the day of the child’s appointment. If there is a legal agreement that requires the other parent to pay all or part of the treatment costs, it is the attending parent’s responsibility to settle the account and collect reimbursement from the other parent.
We do not have the capacity to provide separate feedback to each parent but welcome both parents to attend appointments.
Where there is significant conflict, the doctor reserves the right to request the court orders, obtain signed consent from both parents, or limit their services until dispute has been resolved.
If necessary, your doctor may discharge a family from their services if the conflict is disruptive to the clinic or impedes the care of the child.
We do not take referrals where the purpose of the assessment is to generate information for legal decision making around custody issues of parental separation.
We always try our best to accommodate all family circumstances. Please help us to provide the best care for your children by providing all information regarding your family situation at your first appointment with us.

Unless there’s a court order or the child is a mature minor and has explicitly not consented for the other parent to be involved in their care it is an expected:

Separated parents work together respectfully and cooperatively, regarding the care of their child.
Decisions regarding a child’s medical treatment (e.g. whether to commence medication or start intervention therapy) should be made jointly by both parents wherever possible.
Either parent or legal guardian can:
- schedule an appointment with their child,
- be present at their appointment
Sharing of information would occur directly between parents

If the appointment is made by one parent, it is the responsibility of this parent to inform the other parent, invite them to attend, and provide feedback to them.

Termination of Care

We reserve the right to terminate the provider-patient relationship under the following circumstances:

Unacceptable behaviour by the patient or family member – this may involve verbal abuse, threatened or actual violence, harassment and other boundary violations, including “lovelorn” patients; it may also involve unacceptable behaviour towards practice staff, rather than the doctor
A loss of mutual trust and respect and/or a breakdown in communication.
Continual non-compliance with treatment recommendations.
Criminal acts by a patient, such as obtaining drugs fraudulently, etc.
A patient who tries to coerce the doctor to provide medical treatment that the doctor disagrees with.
If there are unpaid fees.
As per our cancellation policy, if there are too many cancellations/reschedules.
As per our ‘Psychiatry Treatment and Discharge Policy’
In accordance with any of our policies.
If another professional might be more appropriate for the patient.

Privacy Policy

This medical and allied-health practice collects information from you for the primary purpose of providing quality health care. We require you to provide us with your personal details and a full medical history so that we may properly assess, diagnose and treat illnesses and be proactive in your health care. We will also use the information you provide in the following ways:

Administrative purposes in running our medical and allied-health practice
Billing purposes, including compliance with Medicare and Health Insurance Commission requirements
Disclosure to others involved in your health, referring doctors, specialists, allied health services and diagnostic service providers within or outside our practice.
To comply with our legal obligations, including, but not limited to, mandatory notification of communicable diseases or mandatory reporting under applicable child protection legislation.

A copy of our full patient Privacy Policy is available on our website

Psychiatry Treatment & Discharge Policy

After your initial assessment appointment (s), the doctor will discuss treatment recommendations, which may include the need for further assessments, medications, therapy, and follow-up requirements.

Depending on the medication and other factors involved, as well as your/your child’s needs, review appointments may be held weekly, fortnightly, monthly, or every 3 months. Some patients may be discharged with advice to contact for an appointment if the necessity arises.

Review Appointments

Patients/families are encouraged to book their follow-up appointment (if applicable), when leaving our clinic. It is up to the patient/families to book their follow-up appointment within the time frame in accordance with their treatment plan.

If patients or their families do not return for their review appointment by cancelling the appointment or not making a further appointment, as per the treatment plan, they will be sent a reminder by email or other preferred mode, as specified in the patient registration form.

Discharge

Following their reminder correspondence, if no further appointments are booked and attended within the expected review period (depending on the individual case), the patient will be discharged back to the care of the referring GP or Specialist.

Patients could also be discharged for failure to comply with any of the terms and/or conditions of the ‘Controlled Medication Agreement and Consent’.

Additionally, patients could also be discharged to the referring GP/Specialist in cases where they no longer require specialist input. This would usually be discussed with you during your appointment.

Referrals

It is the patient’s (or parent/carer’s) responsibility to ensure valid referrals are provided to claim Medicare rebates. We will endeavour to remind you if referrals are expiring soon, but this should not be relied upon. It is your responsibility to ensure valid referrals are provided.

Out of Appointments Contact

Our staff have other commitments, whether it is working at a different practice, the public sector or involved in continuous professional development or indeed have their family commitments.

As such, our clinical staff are only contactable within our policies and only during their clinical hours.

Zero Tolerance Policy - Abuse

Our staff are dedicated to providing excellent service to you, and you will be treated with courtesy and respect at all times. In return, we request that our Doctors, Psychologists and staff are treated with the same courtesy and respect.

We take it very seriously if a member of staff or practitioner is treated in an abusive way. We operate a zero abuse policy (both physical and verbal) towards any member of our team.

Anyone found to be in breach of this policy may be required to find alternative care. If required, the Police will be called, which may result in the person concerned being removed from our clinic. Please respect the team that looks after you.

Telehealth (Video) Appointments

Consultations are generally provided face-to-face at our clinic. Telehealth - Video appointments may be offered based on the patient’s preference and, if appropriate, at the practitioner’s discretion. The practitioners do not generally provide Telephone appointments.

If patients choose the telehealth option, it is their responsibility to ensure they have excellent internet connectivity and have backup internet options available. For example, having access to broadband and 4G/5G coverage as backup.

If an appointment cannot proceed due to technical issues, it will generally be considered non-attendance, and fees will apply.

Responsibility for Keeping Contact Details Up to Date

It is the responsibility of the patient, or where applicable, their parent or legal guardian/carer, to ensure that the practice has accurate and up-to-date contact details at all times. This includes current phone numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, and emergency contact information.

Failure to update contact information may result in missed communications regarding appointments, treatment plans, or important updates. The clinic cannot be held responsible for any consequences arising from outdated or incorrect contact details.

Emergency or Crisis Service

We are unable to provide emergency care or respond to out-of-hours enquiries or emergencies.

Please note we do not provide emergency or crisis service. If you need help outside usual working hours, contact your GP or try the following services for advice and support:

Lifeline - 13 11 14
Mental Health Line - 1800 011 511
Kids Help Line - 1800 55 1800
Suicide Call Back Service - 1300 659 467

In an emergency or if you are/someone is at serious risk of harm to themselves or others, please contact the police, call 000 or go to a hospital emergency department, where there will be an out-of-hours mental health team/psychiatrist contactable.

By signing below, I acknowledge that I have read, understood, and agree to the above policies, terms, and information. I understand that the Clinic reserves the right to update any of the practice policies by posting updated policies on its website.

Patient Name	___________________________________
Patient DOB	__________________________________
Patient Signature (or Parent/Guardian if under 18)	___________________________________
Parent/Carer Name if Patient is a Minor	___________________________________
Child Signature (if over 14)	___________________________________
Date	___________________________________