Patient Information

For Veterans Affairs patients, the Gold Card is currently accepted for both surgery and home visits.

Please speak with the reception staff or your doctor regarding additional fees for procedures and some vaccinations.

• To allow the best utilisation of your appointment time, new patients are requested to arrive 10-15 minutes early to complete the new patient paperwork. Alternately, you can download the form here, and bring the completed form with you.

• Routine appointments are made for 15 minutes.

• Long appointments (30 mins) and extra long appointments (45 mins) are available on request. 

• Please speak with reception if you are unsure of the length of appointment required. Generally, a routine appointment is for one simple issue.

• For more than one issue or a complicated matter please book a longer appointment. This ensures that the doctor has sufficient time to address your needs and also remains on time for their other patients. If you have not booked enough time to cover your issues you may be asked to return for another consultation so that other patients are not kept waiting. You will not be charged for a longer consult if your appointment is for a shorter duration than anticipated.

• If patients are showing any symptoms of an infectious disease e.g. influenza, chicken pox, measles etc we ask that you advise reception and not take your place in the waiting room.   

• Emergency cases are seen first. As such, we ask for your patience in the event that such cases delay your appointment.

• Separate appointments are required for each family member, even if you are all attending together.

• If an Interpreter or Auslan Service is required, please advise staff prior to your appointment. A minimum of 24 hours notice is required.

• All Insurance/employment medicals must be booked in advance as they can take up to 45 minutes.

• All procedures (e.g removal of moles etc.) to be booked after consultation with your doctor.

• In the interests of proper medical care, you will generally need to see the doctor in person regarding prescriptions.
• Repeat prescriptions are available online through the HotDoc booking system. These will be at the discretion of your doctor and will incur a fee.
• New patients require a standard appointment with a doctor for prescriptions.
• Repeat prescriptions that are written without a consultation will incur an administration fee.
• Restricted or S8 medications will only be prescribed at the discretion of your doctor and will be prescribed according to Australian guidelines. These prescriptions will be subject to checks with Q script.

• These can only be obtained after a consultation with your doctor and only for genuine illnesses.

• It is not legal to backdate medical certificates.

• Carers certificates may be available at your doctors discretion. 

• Referrals and repeat referrals to specialists will not usually be provided without a prior consultation.
• Please note that it is not legal to backdate specialists referrals and doctors will not do so.
• Repeat referrals are available online through the HotDoc booking system. These will be at the discretion of your doctor and will incur a fee.
• New referrals to new specialists will require a standard appointment, as will any referral for new patients to the surgery.
• Patients are advised to inquire of their specialist all the fees that may arise for any appointments or procedures with them.

• If you have provided us with your written consent to do so, your GP may send you an SMS with comments regarding your test results, once they have been checked. 

• If you have not consented to receive such SMS communication, or have not yet received an SMS, please phone for the results of tests the doctor may have ordered for you.

• Do not assume that we will phone you. 

• Reception staff are only able to give you the doctor’s comment, all other information must be discussed with your doctor.

• If further action is required, another appointment may be necessary.

• If you are returning for an appointment to discuss a particular test result with your doctor please check with reception prior to the time of your appointment to ensure the result has been received by your doctor.

• To download our Guide To Getting Your Test Results click here.

Hawthorne Clinic have partnered with HotDoc, an online appointment management system created in Australia.

HotDoc is Australia’s single most popular medical appointment app available through the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Using the HotDoc online service our patients are now able to access online scripts and referrals at the discretion of their doctor.

We are conscious of the widening ‘gap’ caused by the lack of funding support for primary healthcare. This higher gap is due to the increase in the Medicare rebate continuing to be substantially less than inflation (approximately half).

Please note that Hawthorne Clinic is not a Bulk Billing Clinic. To assist the most vulnerable in our community, the GPs may use their discretion to provide some discount in certain cases. Please be mindful, however, that requesting that a privately billed consultation be ‘Bulk Billed’ is asking the GP to discount the value of their service and advice by over 50%.

General

• Telehealth (telephone and video) consults attract the same fees as the corresponding ‘face to face’ consult, and where the patient is eligible for a Medicare rebate, the corresponding rebates apply.
• To be eligible for a Medicare rebate for a Telehealth consult, it is a Medicare requirement that the patient has had a “face to face” consult at the Practice within the previous 12 months or is a My Medicare registered patient of the practice.
• Fees are payable in full at time of consultation. The Clinic is then able to submit any applicable Medicare rebate claim electronically, on the patient’s behalf.
• Procedures (stitches, dressings, etc) will generally incur an additional facility fee, in addition to the GP’s Consult or Procedure Fee.
• Please ensure a separate Appointment is booked for each family member.
• If you have more than 1 issue to discuss with your Doctor, please book a longer consultation. This will assist our Doctors to run on time for your appointment.
• DVA Card holders: Gold Card and White Card (where the consultation is relevant to the condition) will continue to pay no out of pocket expenses.

Cancellation & Non-attendance Policy

Fees may apply, at the discretion of the GP, to patients who either fail to attend their appointment, or cancel their appointment with less than 4 business hours notice.

• New patients who fail to attend their Initial Appointment will be charged a Cancellation & Non-Attendance Fee equivalent to 50% of the Consultation Fee. To facilitate this, new patients will be required to provide valid credit card details as part of their booking.
• Existing patients who fail to attend or cancel their appointment with less than 4 business hours notice will receive one Reminder of our Policy. On the second occasion, a Cancellation & Non-Attendance Fee equivalent to 50% of the Consult Fee will be charged, with the account sent to the patient.

Questions

If you have any questions regarding our Appointment Cancellation & Non-Attendance Policy please speak to our team at reception.