Appointments & Fees

Appointments & Fees

Appointments

Consultations at the clinic are by appointment only. A typical appointment is allotted 15 minutes. Longer appointments are available if needed and will be required if you are a new patient. Longer appointments are generally advised for situations such as first antenatal visits, pap smears, multi-country travel vaccinations, and Medicare care plans. Walk-in appointments are generally not available – patients requesting this kind of appointment will be triaged according to current health needs and booked for the next available appointment.

Home visits are available on an as-needed basis. As a general rule, to assist in managing the health and safety requirements,  home visits are kept to a minimum. Please contact the Reception Team if a home visit may be required. If immediate attention is required, patients are advised call 000 or to present to the West Gippsland Emergency Department or the nearest emergency department.

Repeat Scripts and Referrals

All Doctors and our Nurse Practitioner require appointments to be made for scripts, referrals and results either by a Telephone Consultation, a Face to Face Consultation or for these to be ordered via HotDoc.  If you do not wish to use HotDoc for repeats for any reason, an appointment will be required and normal consult fees will apply. 

Fees and Billing Arrangements 

Independent Doctors set their own fees for their services and have decided that private billing applies to all consults.

• An indicative standard consultation fee is $93. The Medicare rebate is $42.85
• Payment is expected at the conclusion of a consultation. If an account is taken the relevant fee will be increased by a $10 handling charge.
• Longer appointments will incur additional fees. An indicative fee for a long appointment (30 minutes) is $186 with a Medicare rebate of $82.90.
• A nurse consultation is $25 which is non-rebateable from Medicare. This fee applies to appointments such as childhood immunisations/wound care/immunisations/vaccinations.
• Your doctor will discuss fees for procedures with you. Removal of sutures for procedures not done at our clinic will incur a non-rebateable fee of $30.00. Application of dressings will incur a non-rebateable fee of $15.00 basic dressing or $30 for complex dressing. Dressing and suture removal appointments will not be bulk billed.
• A procedure fee is required for services for any procedure that requires specialised equipment or nursing care. Ask reception for further information. Iron infusions incur a $200 fee.
• DVA Gold Card Holders are direct billed for consultations. Financial pre-approval from DVA will be sought for procedures on your behalf.
• If you are experiencing financial difficulty, please discuss this with your doctor during your consultation. Please note, Reception staff communicate the fees determined by the doctor, they do not set the fees.
• Fees change from time to time and will be update on our website/via reception/HotDoc messages/in various other ways.

Independent doctors will not be reintroducing bulk billing  based on increase incentive payments promised to General Practice in the Federal Budget. The reality is, even with increased incentive payments, the amount paid will not equal the amount needed to cover costs.  If you wish to let the Government know that the Medicare rebate is insufficient to assist you in meeting the cost of your medical care, please contact your local Member of Parliament at https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members.

The Medicare Safety Nets can help to lower out-of-pocket medical costs for out of hospital services. For information and to learn how to register, visit Services Australia www.servicesaustralia.gov.au website or call 132 011.

Telehealth Consultations

Telephone and video consultations are available as alternatives to option to face-to-face consultations. While in many situations a face-to-face consultation will be the preferred option, there are scenarios where a telephone or video consultation is clinically justifiable will enable more convenient and accessible health care delivery without compromising patient and health care worker safety. Please note that normal fees apply to telehealth consultations.

 Telehealth consultations are via telephone and video (via Hotdoc’s Whereby platform) in accordance with the RACGP’s “Guide to providing telephone and video consultations”. Telehealth consultations are not recorded or retained.

Please be advised that existing patients who have not been seen face-to-face in the past 12 months will require a face-to-face visit to be able to claim a Medicare rebate in subsequent telehealth appointments. Essentially, all patients require at least one face-to-face visit every 12 months to be able to continue claiming Medicare rebates for telehealth appointments. Limited exceptions to this rule apply.

Workcover and TAC

From the 1st May 2024, any Workcover and TAC patients will need to pay for their consultation at the conclusion of your appointment. An itemised receipt will be provided to submit to your insurer or employer for reimbursement.

The indicative fee for a standard consultation is $89.00 and the current WorkCover reimbursement rate is $70.45. Longer appointments will incur a higher up front fee. Please call reception for details.

This change has been made as the WorkCover reimbursement rate is not sufficient to cover the costs of running our practice. In addition, WorkCover are the most problematic debtor, meaning many WorkCover accounts are going unpaid.

Non-Attendance Fee

If you fail to attend your scheduled appointment, you will be charged a $55.00 non-attendance fee. There is no rebate for this fee.

Transfer of Records to Another Practice

If you wish to transfer your record from this clinic to another clinic, please ask the new clinic/provider to arrange for this to occur. Please be advised that:

• A Health Summary may be sent free of charge. This may also be available already to you on your own My Health Record
• Full history transfer maximum $25 paid to practice before transfer is made.

Medical practices are permitted to charge a reasonable fee for transferring medical records which covers equipment and staff time to organise the transfer securely.

No Appointments Available/Not Available with Your Preferred GP?

Frustration in regard to booking an appointment with a GP is totally understandable. We work hard to continually improve GP and appointment availability. If your preferred GP is not available, we often can assist with an appointment with another GP and/or can put names onto a waiting list in case of a cancellation. Unfortunately, as much as we work to ensure appointments are available, sometimes a wait to see a GP is unavoidable. We understand that health issues can be unpredictable and have built in as much flexibility into our booking system as we can to accommodate demand, but to also ensure enough appointments are pre-booked to make running a medical practice viable. HotDoc is always a great resource to check for GP availability and/or give our friendly reception team a call on 5622 0444.

We also have a great resource in our local area with the Baw Baw Urgent Care Centre, for care when it’s urgent, but not an emergency open 8AM to Midnight 7 days a week (5642 6655).