Appointments
Our standard consultations are 15 minutes. Extra time is required for medicals, mental health, excisions, multiple issues etc. Please advise reception when making bookings if you require a longer booking.
Doctors at the practice endeavor to be on time however, at times consultations take longer than scheduled or urgent cases may cause delays. Reception staff will try to inform you of any delays as you arrive. Please phone ahead of your appointment if a time delay will inconvenience you. If you are unable to keep your appointment, please phone reception as soon as possible to cancel or reschedule your appointment. A did not attend fee will apply if the appointment is not cancelled 2 hours prior to your appointment.
Doctor Availability
At Withcott Medical Centre we always attempt to book you an appointment with the doctor of your choice, however, this is NOT ALWAYS possible. In these instances, our team will endeavor to book you with another doctor at the practice.
Our GP Registrars are fully qualified doctors that have completed their Medical Post Graduate degree and at lease 1 year of hospital rotations. These doctors usually have availability within 1-2 days of requesting an appointment.
Prescriptions /Referrals/Medical Certificates
These are not generally provided outside of a consultation. All patients need to a make appointment with their regular doctor for renewal of scripts, referrals and medical certificates. Doctors have a duty of care to ensure that repeat medication or referral remains appropriate and a consultation is required to check on this. If the matter is urgent, please discuss with reception. Doctors will try to accommodate these requests within 48 hours. It this instance, it is likely that your doctor will phone you, triggering a phone consultation for which private and medicare fees apply.
Home and Other Visits
The practice provides a complete range of medical care, including home, hospital and nursing home visits for regular patients whose condition prevents them from attending the surgery and who live within 5km of the surgery. Please contact the practice to discuss these appointments.
Triage Policy
It is our policy at Withcott Medical Centre that URGENT cases are seen immediately. Please advise reception if you are experiencing:
- CHEST PAIN • ALLERGIC REACTION • BREATHING DIFFICULTIES • STROKE SIGNS
All patients presenting to reception without an appointment will be triaged. Where possible please book an appointment to avoid long waits.
Medical Emergencies
If you are experiencing a medical emergency, please dial 000. If you require medical advice outside of practice hours the local hospitals are:
St Vincent’s Private Hospital Emergency Department – Curzon Street, Toowoomba. Telephone 4690 4444.
Toowoomba Base Hospital – Peachy Street, Toowoomba.
Gatton Hospital Emergency – William Street, Gatton. Telephone 5468 4188
After Hours Appointments
Both Hello Home Doctor and 13 Sick offer care for our patients outside of our regular hours. Patients are advised to contact the services directly to make appointments and confirm any out of pocket costs. These services can usually be bulk billed.
Hello Home Doctor phone: 134 100 – website: Hellohomdoctor.com.au
13 SICK phone: 13 7425 – website: 13SICK.com.au
Communication
Telephone Calls
When communicating with patients via telephone, appropriate consideration is given to the privacy and confidentiality of the patient.
Incoming telephone calls to doctors are restricted to matters of medical urgency. If reception or nursing staff are unable to assist, a message will be taken and given to your doctor. Doctors review their messages throughout the day and advise if a consultation is required or they may contact the patient directly. This is done at the doctor’s discretion at a suitable time within their schedule.
Your doctor may choose to charge a fee for this telephone consultation. If you doctor intends to charge a fee, the cost will be clearly conveyed to you at the beginning of the call. Similarly, if the doctor intends to bulk bill the service, they will discuss obtaining your consent to assign your medicare benefit.
Results – may be given over the telephone. The person relaying the results will ensure that the caller is correctly identified using 3 patient identifiers to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of the patient.
SMS
We use SMS for appointment and clinical reminders and for sharing health awareness information with your consent. Please ensure you let us know if your details change. We currently use Hotdocs to generate our reminders.
Emails / Electronic Communication
As health information is sensitive in nature, we ensure all appropriate measures are taken to protect patient privacy when sending by electronic means. Doctors and clinical staff are able to transmit encrypted email from our clinical software if you have provided your current email address and it has been verified.
Alternatively, we will only send information via email after discussing with you the risks of sending unencrypted emails and obtaining your consent.
Withcott Medical Centre also uses Medical Objects to electronically communicate with other medical facilities.
We are also currently using Hotdocs for online appointment bookings and seek patient consent for the use of mobile phone numbers for confirming appointments.
Patients are discouraged from using email or social media platforms to request appointments or discuss clinical matters. Rather, we ask that you book an appointment online or call and speak to reception.
Reminder System / Results Recall
Our practice is committed to preventive care. Your doctor will seek your permission to be included on our reminder system. We will issue you with a reminder notice from time to time offering you preventive health services appropriate to your care. Please notify us if you do not wish to participate in this system.
Results
Once your doctor has viewed your results, they are available from reception or our nursing staff. Our team will be able to advise you of normal results or will advise that your doctor requires a further appointment to discuss results with you.
The practice does have a recall system in place to follow up clinically significant tests, results, reports and clinical correspondence, but we encourage you to contact the practice by telephone if you are concerned or have not been contacted about your results. We recommend you call for results after 2pm.
SMS Reminders
Withcott Medical Centre uses Hotdocs for a text message reminder system. Hotdocs generate a text message once the reminder is due. If you have opted out of receiving text messages, reminder letters may be sent out. Hotdocs do not create or store any patient data, it is integrated with Best Practice (our practice software).
National and State reminder system – Withcott Medical also participates in these reminder systems e.g., cancer screening, immunisations etc. Please advise your doctor is you do not want to participate in these schemes.
Your Mobile Phone
We ask that you are respectful with the use of your phone at the practice. Please consider others before commencing a phone call within the waiting area or consulting room. If possible, please switch the phone off or turn to SILENT for the duration of your visit to the practice.
For more information about our communication policy, please ask at reception.
Personal Health Information Management
Your medical record is a confidential document. It is the policy of this practice to maintain security of personal health information at all times and to ensure that this information is only available to authorised members of staff. We abide by the relevant privacy acts. For more information go to www.oaic.gov.au or ask for our privacy policy or view using the link below:
Personal Information Collection Notice
Complaints
We take complaints and concerns regarding privacy seriously. You should express any privacy concerns you may have in writing. We will then attempt to resolve it in accordance with our resolution procedure.
You may also contact the OAIC (Office of the Australian Information Commissioner). Generally, the OAIC will require you to give them time to respond before they will investigate. For further information visit www.oaic.gov.au or call the OAIC on 1300 363 992.
You could also contact your relevant state or territory health authorities/ombudsman by sending an email [email protected] or completing a complaint form on their website.
Feedback
This practice is accredited through QPA and we are committed to quality improvement to provide you with the best possible care by continually reviewing our policies and procedures. However, despite our best intentions, dissatisfaction and grievances may occur. We have procedures in place that may assist you if this occurs. Please feel free to talk to your doctor or receptionist or you may prefer to write to us.
Suggestions Box – general feedback is always welcome and can be left in the box at the practice.
Practice Accreditation and Improvement Survey
In December 2023, as part of our commitment to improving the quality of our practice, our patients were asked to participate in an independent survey of our practice across 6 areas including communication & interpersonal skills, continuity of care, privacy & confidentiality, access & availability and provision of information.
As a team, we are delighted with the results, with 99% of all patients surveyed giving us a rating of good to excellent across all areas. Our team always strive to provide our community with an excellent level of service to achieve the best health outcomes possible. Its heartening to know that our patients value and acknowledge the efforts of all our team.