Privacy & Fees Statement

What you need to know about privacy

We respect your privacy and take it very seriously. We need to collect sensitive information about you in order to provide you with a health service. All clinical consultation notes and identifying information about you is stored in a password protected environment on a web-based clinical software program called Clinic to Cloud. This information is only accessible to your clinician, and authorised practice personnel upon whom we depend, in order to provide you with the service. Under Medicare requirements, clinicians are required to write back to referrers at certain times during the course of treatment, hence some information about you may be shared with your referrer. Please advise up front if this is of concern to you.

If you accept a referral to another clinician within the practice or externally, you are consenting to your clinician sharing information about you with the new clinician. You are entitled to access and correct your personal information kept on file at any stage, subject to exceptions in the relevant legislation.

Limitations to Privacy

We will not share information with parents, partners, employers, insurers, or other people without your consent. Sometimes it is helpful for your recovery to include trusted loved ones in your therapy or to share information with other health care providers – this would be done only with your consent. However, there are exceptions under the legislation where we may share information without your consent. Examples might be if we believe you are at serious risk of causing significant harm to the life, health or safety of yourself or someone else, if a child we can identify is at serious risk of harm from you or from someone else, or if we are ordered to do so by a court or other legislative body, (e.g., hostile custody disputes, insurance legal claims). Under these circumstances your clinician would make every effort to discuss this with you first.

On some occasions we may seek advice from respected colleagues so as to provide the best possible level of care. We may also discuss various cases from time to time for the purpose of ongoing education. In these situations we do not allow our colleagues to see your file notes and we do not reveal your name or identifying details. Such discussions between clinicians are vital for ongoing professional development and education. Sometimes clinicians share with patients and peers some observations they have made regarding symptoms and recovery strategies of other patients. As clinicians, we gain new learning each time we engage in therapy with a new person - this new learning informs how we help others, but the sharing of information is done in a way that does not identify any individual.

Fees

As private practitioners we charge fees for our services. Our practice does not receive funding from any source other than our patients (the government does not provide any form of financial support for private practices), hence the fees you pay are set at a level than reflects our time and experience and the cost of running a practice. Billing is time based so longer appointments attract higher fees. We regret that we do not provide bulk billing services so you will have an out of pocket cost. Our fees and the estimated gap payment are listed on our website and may be changed without notice. If you hit the Medicare extended safety-net during the year, the gap fees decrease substantially. It is helpful to check with Medicare that your family unit is registered for the safety-net. Individuals are registered automatically.

Please note that payment is required on the day of consultation by debit or credit card. We do not accept cash, cheque, or bank transfers. You may be asked to make a partial pre-payment for your first appointment which is fully refundable if you cancel with at least 2 business days’ notice. This partial pre-payment has been successful at reducing the rate of non-attendance at the initial consultation. Non-attendance at appointments prevents other people from receiving much-needed care.

Cancellation Policy

If you need to cancel an appointment, please give us as much notice as you can. If you are unwell, please request a telehealth consultation – we ask that you do not attend the practice if you have a contagious illness of any kind.

If you cancel an appointment with less than 2 business days’ notice you will be asked to pay the full fee for the appointment. You will not receive a Medicare rebate for a non-attendance payment. If we cannot get in touch with you after an appointment non-attendance and you do not pay for the appointment, we regret that we may need to cancel your future bookings to ensure our time is used most effectively, and so that others who are in need can be seen more promptly. If someone else is paying for your appointments we believe it is fair that we are able to inform them about the non-attendance so that they are able to exercise best judgment as to whether they are happy to continue providing funding for services that are not being used effectively. If this does not suit you, please ensure that you are the one who makes the payment.