Wellcare Medical Clinic

   

Our privacy principles

Your medical record is a confidential document. It is the policy of this practice to maintain security of personal information at all times and to ensure that, this information is only available to authorised staff members and will not be released without your written consent. Only de-identified data may be used for research purposes. During the accreditation process, medical records are randomly selected by a GP for quality assurance purposes. If you do not wish your records to be accessed, please inform your doctor.

Wellcare Medical Clinic: Gap fees for Medicare Patients

 

    Gap fee guide from 1 November 2023:

      The following patients will be required to pay the full cost of the consult (Medicare rebate + out of pocket “Gap fee”):

       

    1. Patients without a current pension card or concession cardwill be required to pay a $40 gap fee.
    2. All Walk-in patients (extra family members arriving to one booked appointment included) and All on the day consult request regardless of healthcare card status will be required to pay a $50 gap fee ($30 gap fee for concession card holders).  When the clinic is fully booked, such consult requests must be approved by the doctor on duty.
    3. All patients who clearly use multiple GP clinics on a regular basis will not be bulk billed ($30 gap fee for concession card holders).
    4. Consults involving procedures such as skin excisions, suturing of lacerations, complex wound/burns dressing, ear syringing, Implanon insertion and removal will also incur a gap fee regardless of concession card status (please enquire at reception for pricing).
    5. We do not offer home visits, but in the rare circumstances in which they are provided, these will not be bulk billed.
    6. Due to the large amount of patients who fail to attend their booked appointments, such patients are not permitted to make another appointment within 2 weeks of that failed to attend appointment unless the $40 failed to attend fee is paid in advanced. This second appointment booking will not be bulk billed ($50/$40 gap for concession card holders).

     

    The Medicare rebate can be claimed back electronically almost instantly to 24hours via direct debit/savings bankcard.

     

    (Follow-up of result appointments in general will be bulk billed unless the doctor is presented with additional presenting complaints).

     

     

      We will continue to bulk-bill consultations for the following patients who have a pre-booked appointment in advanced of at least the day before:

       

      1. Patients with a current pension or concession card
      2. Children aged under 16 years of age.
      3. Patients with a significant chronic health condition (such as diabetes or heart disease) requiring frequent visits to the doctor and has a current GP management care plan completed at our clinic.  GP management care plans from other clinics are not accepted.   Eligibility for a GP management care plan is at the discretion of the doctor. We are unable to complete a GP management care plan for new patients.

       

      Bulk-billing consultations, and the gap fee amount is always at the discretion of the doctor consulting, the above information is only to provide a general guide.

       

       

        We will continue to charge a once off $50 (or $40 for concession card holders) administration fee for new patients, and patients who have not attended our clinic for more than 5 years.  (The other alternative to forgoing this administration fee is to not accept any new patients, as we are a small family clinic with limited staffing resources).

          We will also continue to charge a$40 non-attendance of an appointment fee. 

          Our reception and nursing staff are there to help patients wanting to make a booking to see the doctor, as well as work in relation to a doctors consult.    People requesting reception or nursing staff perform duties beyond their job description will be asked to pay a $10 to $40 administration/labour fee.    

          Examples of this include:

          1. Getting reception/nursing staff to email results (results are already freely available to patients online by linking My Health Records to your My Gov account). 
          2. Interpreting hospital letters without a doctor’s appointment. 
          3. Blood taking/venepunctures without a doctor’s appointment (this service is freely available at pathology test centres such as SA Pathology or Clinpath).

           

          ***Reception staff are not permitted to discuss results with patients. Nursing staff can discuss results that are simple in nature, hence patients should follow-up all results with the requesting doctor unless advised otherwise***

            Non-Medicare consultations such as Commercial/Heavy vehicle license examinations, employment medical examinations and international travellers will be required to pay the full account on the day.  Please inquire at reception for an accurate quote on the specific service request.

            A note on MyMedicare:  currently MyMedicare has little impact on out-of-pocket costs to see our doctors, this cannot be guaranteed to be the case in the future.   Therefore, we encourage all our regular patients to sign us up as your chosen GP practice/General Practitioner, to ensure there will be no limitations on accessing certain Medicare funded services in the future.