APPOINTMENTS
Consultations are by appointment. 12 to 15 minutes is allotted for a normal appointment. If you consider that a longer time may be required, please discuss this with the receptionist when making your appointment. Please tell the receptionist at the time of requesting the appointment if the problem is URGENT - for example chest pain, severe asthma or migraine. Longer appointments will be needed for the following medical appointments:
When attending for your appointment, please report to the reception desk with your Medicare Cards and Government Health Cards. CANCELLED APPOINTMENTS - If you are unable to keep an appointment, please notify us as soon as possible so that we may allot the time to another person. DUTY DOCTOR CLINIC A Duty Doctor Clinic operates at Tea Tree Surgery each week day from 4pm to 6.00 pm. The clinic is designed to cater for patients who need to be seen on that day, but for whom no regular appointments are available. The clinic will operate similarly to our out of hours clinics. Patients need to ring for an allocated attendance time - patients who walk in without an allocated time will be offered the next available appointment time - they may choose to return at that time or wait in the surgery. The duty doctor will deal with the immediate problem - if follow up is required or more complex issues are also involved another scheduled appointment can then be booked. Normal fees will apply. CONTINUITY of CARE – Seeing the same doctor whenever possible has been consistently shown to improve health outcomes – this is particularly the case for ongoing complaints or during a particular episode of illness. Observing often subtle changes in a patient is critical in making a diagnosis or determining treatment – seeing the same doctor is the only real way of detecting such change. It is our practice policy to encourage patients to see their usual doctor whenever possible. HOUSE CALLS Patients are encouraged to attend the Surgery where possible but home visits are conducted if patients are unable to travel to the Surgery. Patients with disabilities are offered home visits if they are unable to attend the surgery. It is appreciated if home visits can be booked as early as possible in the day. IMMUNISATION A full range of routine immunisations are available at all times at both St Agnes and Tea Tree Surgery. An appointment is necessary with a doctor to discuss your specific needs. TEST RESULTS Patients are reminded that they must always follow-up for a review of ALL test results with their doctor. This will either need to be at a face to face consultation or through a book phone consultation. Patients are requested to ring after 10.00 am for routine test results. TELEPHONE MESSAGES All messages will be taken by the receptionist and and sent electronically to the doctor concerned. A consultation will not normally be interrupted to answer the telephone. PRESCRIPTIONS and REFERRALS Repeat prescriptions and specialist re-referrals will not normally be issued without doctor - patient contact. Where it has been agreed that such repeats will be issued, 24 hours notice is required and a fee of $5 for prescriptions, and $5 for re-referrals may be charged on each occasion. Drs Hand, LePoidevin and Menon provide an emailed repeat script and re-referral service via this web site - CLICK HERE for the service. The medical Health Act requires that a Doctors assessment should take place prior to any referral if a Medicare benefit is to be paid - hence a retrospective specialist referral will not be provided. |
SICKNESS CERTIFICATES will not be issued unless a doctor has been consulted in relation to that illness, and can not be back dated.
FEES The fees charged for professional services are available on request and detailed on the Fees page of this website. It is our policy that payment be made in full on the day of the consultation. We are a privately billing clinic with a reduced Private Fee charged for Monday – Friday appointments for
GP REGISTRARS Our practice is accredited by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners to provide post graduate training for our future general practitioners. GP Registrars working towards their FRACGP ( Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners) are employed and receive part of their training at St Agnes. TEACHING At times during the year some practice doctors are involved in teaching - most often, medical students. Should you visit the practice when your doctor has a student in attendance, you will be asked, prior to entering the consulting room, if you consent to the student being present during the consultation. Neither the student nor your doctor will be offended if you decline. From January 2018 our practice was again re accredited through GPEX as training practice for post graduate doctors working toward their Fellowship in General Practice (FRACGP). PATIENT FEEDBACK Our practice endeavours to provide a comprehensive, high quality service for patients. At times we may invite you to complete a questionnaire to identify areas in which we may improve that service. Patient feedback has contributed to a number of changes within the practice including the introduction each week day of a Duty Doctor Clinic, better signage - particularly in relation to weekend services, complete renovation of the Tea Tree Surgery waiting and reception areas, better magazines and health information including 'Your Doctor' and putting a baby change station into Tea Tree Surgery. Thank you! If you are unhappy with any aspect of our care we are keen to hear about it. Please discuss any problem you may have with your doctor or our Practice Manager. If you wish to pursue the problem outside of the practice, information is available from the: Medical Board of South Australia, 91 Payneham Rd, St Peters 5069. PRIVACY Australian Privacy laws ensure that individuals consent to the collection of personal and sensitive information about themselves, including health information. St Agnes Surgery has a Privacy Policy which describes why we collect information, the type of information we keep, how we use it and how you may access it. All medical records and communications concerning patients are stored electronically and are available to your treating doctor at either surgery at all times. The information is protected by a sophisticated password system. Access to our computer is not available from organisations outside the practice. Patient information is not provided to an outside body (e.g. for reports or insurance purposes) without prior written consent by the patient. Written consent will be gained from each patient should we ever be involved in any research or similar program. The Act allows patients to access the content of their medical record by arrangement with the Practice. The information is detailed in our Privacy Policy. |