Patient Information

APPOINTMENTS

Seeing a doctor requires making an appointment. Please tell the receptionist if your problem is urgent. Sick children will always be seen on the day.

A standard consultation lasts for up to 15 minutes. Please ask for a longer appointment if you know that you will need it, or you have more than one issue to discuss with the doctor. Work or insurance medicals are usually longer appointments, so please inform the staff of these when booking.

The doctors are willing to take time for counselling or for comprehensively assessing a problem, so we encourage you to book a longer appointment for these purposes. Please be reassured that consultations are billed on time spent and complexity and not on the length of appointment booked.

If more than one person in your family needs to be seen please ask for an appointment for each of them.

We welcome new patients. If you are attending the practice for the first time, please arrive 15 minutes before your appointment time to register your details with the practice.

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR DOCTOR’S APPOINTMENT

At Queen Street Medical Centre, a standard appointment is 15 minutes. Therefore, this is only enough time to deal with one issue or two quick ones.

• If you know that you will need more time, please ask for a longer appointment when booking.
• If you try to fit in too many problems to discuss, the Doctor will run over time, causing delays for the subsequent patients (we all hate having to wait to see the Doctor) and may lead to you needing to book another appointment to complete.
• Make a list of the issues you would like to discuss. This allows the Doctor to prioritise them with you for the most effective results.
• We don’t ask patients to come back for the sake of it – we do this because there may be several important issues to address, or to review results before being able to provide advice tailored to your needs.
• If you are a new patient to the practice, or an existing patient who might be new to the doctor, you may require more time so that the doctor can get a good background history of your condition.

The Doctors at Queen Street Medical Centre like to be thorough and give your medical issues the time they deserve. Letting the Receptionist know you may require a longer appointment allows the Doctor to run on time more often and prevent yourself and all the patients booked after you waiting excessively.

Remember that the time you spend with the Doctor in the room may not account for the entire time that they spend on your case or your file.

The appointment times are allocated as follows:

ACCESSING YOUR DOCTOR OR NURSE

Most issues are best dealt within a consultation. A doctor or nurse will always be available during normal surgery hours to provide emergency advice over the phone. Our staff will help you decide whether an issue requires an appointment, a return phone call or immediate advice.

TEST RESULTS

For your safety you must obtain results of any tests done. This may be at an arranged follow-up appointment. If not please contact the surgery to learn your results. Do not assume that “no news is good news”. Make sure that you get a result. For your convenience your doctor may have left a message at reception to pass on to you when you phone.

RECALL REMINDERS

We are committed to preventative care and to appropriate management of chronic conditions. We may send you a recall reminder letter from time to time offering you follow up or preventive care. If you do not wish to be part of this service, please inform your doctor.

WAITING TIMES

Please understand that as illnesses are unpredictable conditions, appointment times cannot always run on time. Emergencies take priority and may require rescheduling of other appointments, so please be patient if you have booked an appointment and an emergency arises. This is not common. Our doctors, nurses and receptionists make every attempt to keep appointments running to their scheduled time however, unforseen circumstances may create occasional delays. To assist us in reducing waiting times, please review the section ”Getting the most out of your Doctor’s appointment”

CANCELLATIONS AND RESCHEDULING

If you are unable to make your appointment, please call to let us know in advance. Someone else could be offered the appointment. We can arrange another appointment time for you. If you fail to attend your appointment or give less than one hour’s notice of cancellation you may be charged a missed appointment fee, a minimum of $20 which is not claimable on Medicare.

HOME VISITS

Doctors at Queen Street Medical Centre provide home visits and see residents of nursing homes. Home visits will be provided for those seriously ill, or who have transport problems. Your problem may be discussed with a doctor, and it may be decided that, for the benefit of your health, it would be better that an ambulance be called. Home visits are carried out during working hours.