Practice Policies

We are a private billing practice and charge private fees for our services. All patients require a current, valid referral to be eligible for Medicare rebate. A GP referral is valid for 12 months and a specialist referral is valid for 3 months.

Please contact us for the most current fee schedule by calling 03 9501 7240 or emailing reception@promindcare.com.au.

**PLEASE NOTE:

1. 1. Fees are subject to change without notice. It is your responsibility to check with our practice for our most current fee schedule.
   2. A processing fee of 1.9% applied to all card transactions.
   3. The booking item and fee initially charged are estimates only. The final item number and fee will be determined after your consultation based on the doctor’s assessment.

ProMind Care aims to provide high quality mental health care to all our patients. As such, when you book an appointment, that time slot is reserved for you and when it is missed, that time cannot be reallocated to treat other patients. We request that you respect our doctors’ time and provide us with adequate notice so that our team is able to reallocate your appointment time to other patients.

• At the time of booking, a 50% deposit is required to secure your appointment (for both initial and follow up appointments). This will be used toward your final fee.

• 2 business days prior to your appointment, full prepayment (less deposit) will be automatically processed using our secure payment platform with your securely stored payment details.

• Appointment fee is fully refundable if you cancel or reschedule your appointment with at least 48 business hours’ notice. However, please note that card transaction processing fee is NON – REFUNDABLE.

• We reserve the right to cancel the appointment if you fail to confirm your appointment or if full payment is not received 48 hours prior.

The following cancellation policy applies and must be paid before you can reschedule your next appointment.

**PLEASE NOTE:

1. Weekends and/or public holidays are not included as hours of notice, as these hours do not provide our team with an opportunity to offer your session time to other patients who are waiting to see your doctor. We thank you for respecting this policy.

2. Emergencies sometimes occur, and discretion will be used to determine the significance of the emergency. On a case by case basis, your doctor might choose to waive the late cancellation fee.

We understand that sometimes late arrival may be beyond your control. If you are running late to your appointment, we ask that you inform us as soon as practical.

If you arrive late, our doctors will do their best to provide a review. As a courtesy to the next patient however, your appointment will still finish at the originally scheduled time. If you arrive more than 20 minutes late to any appointment, we reserve the right to deem it as a No-show and you will need to reschedule your consultation to the next available time and late cancellation fee will apply.

It is the patient’s responsibility to schedule a follow-up appointment well in advance to avoid lack of availability with the doctor’s schedule.

Appointments can be made by clicking on the “ONLINE BOOKING” button on our website, or calling our reception team directly on 03 9501 7240 during our Office Hours (Mon – Fri 09:00 AM – 04:30 PM excluding Public Holidays).

To reschedule or cancel an appointment, you can use the appointment link from the appointment confirmation email or the “Manage Appointment” function within your Halaxy patient portal or call our clinic.

Please note that we do not provide after-hour care, and are not a crisis management facility. In an emergency, please ring 000 or go to the Emergency Department at your local hospital.

For less urgent support, please call:

Mental Health Crisis Line: 1800 011 511

Lifeline: 13 11 14

BeyondBlue: 1300 22 46 36

To minimise disruption to the doctor’s and respect our patients’ treatment time, phone calls from patients will not be put through to the doctors.

Patients are required to book an appointment to discuss enquiries about prescriptions, medical conditions, symptoms, medical reports, medical certificates, and application forms. All forms, reports and certificates including travel letters require 2 – 4 weeks’ notice to be completed and only availabe to current patients.

Prescription for stimulant only lasts for six months and unused repeats on a script will expire after this timeframe.

Schedule 8 medicines are subject to strict legislative controls due to their high potential for misuse, abuse and dependence, therefore doctors are required to review patients every six months in order to continue prescribing stimulant to them. If your script has expired and you have not seen your doctor for 6 months, you will be required to book a 45-minute/6-monthly review before your script can be renewed.

All prescriptions must be requested during your consultation. Requesting repeat scripts outside of consultation via phone or email will not be accepted.

Patients are required to book a review in order to get their scripts renewed:

• 15-minute review if you request scripts less than 3 months from your last appointment.
• 30-minute review if you request scripts 3 – 6 months from your last appointment.
• 45-minute review if you request scripts 6 – 9 months from your last appointment.
• 60-minute review if you request scripts 10 months or more from your last appointment.

Our doctors are usually fully-booked at least 3 weeks in advance so please ensure you organise a review accordingly and BEFORE you completely run out of medications.

We have ZERO TOLERANCE to any aggressive, abusive or any form of discrimination and threatening behaviour toward our staff, doctors and patients. Our staff are specially trained to be professional, helpful and respectful toward all patients and their needs and circumstances. We request that you treat our staff and doctors with courtesy and respect at all times. The following types of behaviour would be unacceptable at our practice:

1. Violence
2. Verbal abuse toward the staff or doctors in any form
3. Discrimination of any kind
4. Sexual and racial harassment
5. Offensive gestures or behaviours
6. Excessive noise i.e. recurrent loud or intrusive conversation or shouting
7. Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible, and explanations are given when they cannot
8. Derogatory comments about the practice or individual either verbally, in writing/digitally, or on social media platforms
9. Malicious allegations relating to members of staff, or other patients
10. Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff, or patients
11. Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently

If any of the above is violated, our practice reserves the right to end a phone call, ask the patient to leave the clinic, or in extreme cases, the Police may be contacted which may result in the patient being removed from the Practice’s book permanently.

All fees must be paid in full within 3 DAYS of receipt of the initial invoice if not yet processed automatically 2 days prior. A LATE PAYMENT FEE OF $30 applies.

The patient (or primary contact) shall be responsible for all costs actually incurred by ProMind Care in the recovery of any monies owed by the patient to ProMind Care, including recovery agent costs, location search costs, process server costs and solicitor costs on a solicitor/client basis.

This privacy policy is to provide information to our patients on how your personal information (which includes your health information) is collected and used within our practice, and the circumstances in which we may share it with third parties. 

When you register as a patient of our practice, you provide consent for our doctors and practice staff to access and use your personal information so they can provide you with the best possible healthcare. Only staff who need to see your personal information will have access to it. If we need to use your information for anything else, we will seek additional consent from you to do this.

Our main purpose for collecting, using, holding and sharing your personal information is to manage your health. We also use it for directly related business activities, such as financial claims and payments, practice audits and accreditation, and business processes (eg staff training).

The information we will collect about you includes your:

• Names, date of birth, addresses, contact details
• Medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history, family history and risk factors
• Medicare number (where available) for identification and claiming purposes
• Healthcare identifiers

We sometimes share your personal information:

• With third parties who work with our practice for business purposes, such as accreditation agencies or information technology providers – these third parties are required to comply with APPs and this policy
• With other healthcare providers
• When it is required or authorised by law (eg court subpoenas)
• When it is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety or public health or safety, or it is impractical to obtain the patient’s consent
• To assist in locating a missing person
• To establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim
• For the purpose of confidential dispute resolution process
• When there is a statutory requirement to share certain personal information (eg some diseases require mandatory notification)
• During the course of providing medical services, through eTP, My Health Record (eg via Shared Health Summary, Event Summary).

Only people who need to access your information will be able to do so. Other than in the course of providing medical services or as otherwise described in this policy, our practice will not share personal information with any third party without your consent.

Dictation tools

Our practice uses transcribing/dictation tools to assist with effectively and accurately documenting care progress and corresponding with other professionals. This would also mean your doctor can spend more time with you discussing your health concerns and progress rather than using appointment time for documentation.

Consultations are transcribed simultaneously while they happen. Notes that a doctor saves from the appointment will be added to your health records in our Practice Management System, as standard. All tools utilised are compliant with the Australian Privacy Principles and the Privacy Act. Where data is concerned, your data protection is our top priority. All data is encrypted, securely and confidentially stored on servers located within Australia to comply with local jurisdiction requirements.