Your Visits
Emergency Care
Call 000 or present to your closest hospital.
After Hours
We offer a private after-hours service that is staffed by our GPs on a rotating basis. Our on-call doctor can be contacted outside of our regular business hours. Private after-hours fees apply.
Appointments
Booking – standard vs long
We are able to pre-book appointments up to 2 years in advance. We encourage our patients to pre-book their routine appointments. Our standard appointment time is 15 mins. If you have multiple or complex issues to discuss we recommend you request a long appointment to allow sufficient time to address your concerns.
Urgent appointments
We reserve a number of Urgent appointments each day for patients with urgent issues. These appointments are charged at our standard practice fees. These appointments are limited and are reserved for urgent matters. For routine matters, we ask that you pre-book your appointments in advance.
Telehealth to GP
Goondiwindi Medical Centre continues to offer Telehealth for consultations. You will get a Medicare rebate (that is, Medicare will pay for part or all of your consultation – depending on concession status) if you are a regular patient of our practice. A regular patient by Medicare definition is someone who has been seen face to face at the practice in the last 12 months.
We offer telephone and video consultations – video consultation is with the use of a camera on your phone or device. Video consultation is preferable – it allows us to see how you are as well as hear how you are. We can see how you are feeling, how you are breathing, what the rash or skin lesion looks like, how alert your child is and how you move your joints. Please ask for a video consult – if we experience technical issues or you have concerns we can revert to the telephone if we need.
If we decide in the consultation you need to be examined face to face we can arrange this too.
Telehealth to specialist
Telehealth allows patients in remote areas to connect with healthcare providers* in major centres without the need to travel. We have telehealth facilities available if you are not able to connect from home. We charge $25 for this service. Speak to your GP and specialist about whether this is an available option for you.
Missed appointments
If you miss 2 appointments (without providing 1 hr notice) we will require a deposit prior to booking another appointment. This deposit will be put towards the consultation fee for this appointment, however if the appointment is missed then the deposit will be forfeited.
Please contact us to cancel your appointment if you are unable to attend.
We have a daily cancellation list, so if you cancel your appointment with sufficient time, we are able to offer that time to another patient. An appointment missed by you is an appointment missed by two!
Cancellation
Appointments can be cancelled through the AMS app, by replying ‘No’ to your confirmation sms or by contacting the practice directly.
Fees & Billing
The Goondiwindi Medical Centre is a private practice. In most cases, we are able to use Easy-Claim or Patient Claiming to assist in claiming your Medicare rebate. Easy-Claim rebates are able to be credited using your key card to a cheque or a savings account instantly and Patient Claiming uses the details Medicare have on their file to deposit your rebate into your bank account (generally processed overnight). Bulk billing is at the discretion of the treating doctor, not the reception staff.
Short Consultation
- Private Fee $51
- Medicare rebate $20.05
- Out of pocket $29.95
Standard Consultation
- Private Fee $96
- Medicare rebate $43.90
- Out of pocket $50.10
Long Consultation
- Private Fee $172
- Medicare rebate $84.90
- Out of pocket $83.10
Phone and Email Enquiries
Script requests
It is generally not appropriate for doctors to write and provide prescriptions without an appointment. Only under exceptional circumstances, your doctor may agree to provide a short term prescription, for which there will be a private fee charged that is non-refundable through Medicare.
Referral requests
It is generally not appropriate for doctors to write and provide referrals without an appointment. Only under exceptional circumstances, your doctor may agree to provide a referral for a known issue, for which there will be a private fee charged that is non-refundable through Medicare.
Results
If you have had tests done, we recommend you book another appointment to discuss the results with your GP. If your GP receives any results that require further investigation, discussion or action we will contact you through sms, phone call or letter sent in the mail. It is important that we have your current contact details. Please let us know if you update your phone number or address.
Please do not assume no news is good news. Our reception staff are able to advise if your GP has marked a result with a recall action, they are not able to tell you a specific result and we suggest you see your GP for this information. Please call after 9am if you would like to enquire on the status of your results.
Phone
Doctors do not generally take phone calls during consultations though messages can be left for your doctor.
We aim to respond to emails within 3 business days. Our standard email system is not encrypted. By requesting information via email, we assume you accept this risk.