Bookings Policy
requesting and booking an appointment-go here
Your booking is made subject to our POLICIES REGARDING:
Bookings, Fees & Cancellations Privacy, Respect and Trust, Fee Payment, Communication with and Contact.
Bookings should only be sought and accepted if you are able and happy to engage with your doctor and their Prosper Paediatrics reception team in agreement with the advised policies, terms, conditions and booking requirements. The requirements for delivery of private paediatric medical services are complex and shaped by the unique challenges of providing healthcare to children combined with regulatory, medico-legal and financial constraints. We will take care to inform you carefully about all the things families need to know.
The booking email is essential reading
A Booking Email is sent to you when you book an appointment and about 72 hours prior to that appointment. This provides the essential details and requirements for the appointment. Please read your Booking Email each time we send it, keep it on hand to check and put the details in your calendar /diary. The booking email provides important reminders and is often updated to advise changing requirements and the current fees. Please immediately advise us if not received within 24 hours of booking and let us know of any questions or concerns.
Your booking is only held, and your appointment is provided, subject to our policies, conditions and requirements explained or summarised in the Booking Email, this website and any other handouts we provide.
How long is the appointment?
For New Patient appointments, some formal assessments, complex reviews or where your child has not been seen for more than a year, one hour isnormally booked.
Most review appointments are around 20 to 45 min in length. Our doctors understand that families have many time commitments and work hard to keep to their schedule. However, urgent matters can come up unexpectedly. Sometimes, a longer wait or rescheduling may become necessary. We will do our best to advise you about expected delays.
Your doctor’s Cancellation list
Cancellation Lists are managed carefully. Patients are triaged. However, we hope to bring all appointments forward and allocate significant resources to this. When your child is booked, we send detailed information about managing appointment offers.
Necessary written communication in emails, handouts & SMS
To ensure correct, consistent, needed information is provided in a cost-effective way, all families are asked to carefully read any handouts, emails, posted correspondence or SMS. If needed, one of our team can take you through the information over the phone. We do not use email or other communication for marketing or non-essential purposes. Reading the information we send will help maximise excellent healthcare outcomes for your child, avoid problems and reduce cost pressures on fees.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our friendly staff.
Our Billing Policy
bookings are accepted and ALL OUR SERVICES ARE PROVIDED ON THE BASIS THAT ADVISED FEES ARE PAID BY THE DUE DATE.
Prosper Paediatrics provides accurate information about the fees and gaps associated with services so that your consent is fully informed. Our Booking Emails, handouts and website provide all the information required by law, good professional conduct and considered important by parents. These policies also help your provider give the best care whilst avoiding unnecessary costs to the practice or families.
WHY Fees?
As a private practitioner, your provider’s services are funded only by patient fees. Your fees will fund and make possible quality services, with enhanced continuity of care, with budgets that are substantially less than those provided by the government in the public system.
The specialists associated with Prosper Paediatrics believe that the best outcomes for your child will be possible within an ongoing healthcare relationship. With your doctor, we work to make your visits to our rooms comfortable, happy and welcoming for your children. Seeing children bounding through the door and delighted to see their doctor is great evidence of a good doctor-patient relationship.
Your provider has asked Prosper Paediatrics to handle all the administrative work and facilities needed to support this relationship with you. Prosper Paediatrics provides these services using their experience, training, professional development and staff to efficiently, responsibly and cost-effectively administer and equip your provider’s practice so that they can concentrate on their passion and profession, providing the best paediatric health care possible to their patients. This approach to healthcare is why most families seek care with our associated specialists.
Your doctor’s fees must sustainably fund and remunerate this administrative work and practice costs as well as their medical consultation and management. Their health services are the outcome of their time, experience, training, ongoing professional development, licensing, and other personal professional costs.
Affordability is an important goal for your provider in setting fees but is considered in light of the substantial costs of practice and the availability of various publicly funded clinics, providers and other assistance.
Fees are likely to increase over time with increases in practice costs. Medicare was established to provide all Australians with assistance to afford private healthcare. For a very long time, the Federal Government (Labor and Coalition) has not allowed Medicare rebates to keep pace with the very substantial increases in the cost of healthcare, necessitating fee and gap increases over many years.
Staff routinely advise fees, standard rebates and gaps when booking initial New Patient Appointments. A link to your provider’s current Fee Schedule is included in each Booking Email. Initial new patient appointment fees involve a higher gap than review appointments. We advise the highest and lowest fee that could be billed for the appointment. Families may see a different doctor from time to time and should be aware that fees and the gap may be a little higher or less than they are usually billed.
Prosper Paediatrics administers your doctor’s billing and banks all payments directly to their account. Your doctor pays an agreed fee to Prosper Paediatrics for the administrative services and facilities we provide to support their practice. The efficiencies made possible with Prosper Paediatrics allow your doctor to manage and reduce the costs of their practice and their patient fees.
prosper paediatrics-associated clinicians do not bulk bill. Families with concerns about fees are invited to read our Concessions Policy below.
medicare, other Government or private health rebates and funding to assist in the affordability of fees:
Medicare plays a big role in helping families afford these fees by paying rebates that substantially and quickly reduce family out-of-pocket costs. Medicare pays rebates normally within six business hours of payment and lodgement of a claim. If eligible, additional Medicare Safety Net rebates further reduce gaps (out-of-pocket costs). The PBS Safety Net and some other Federal Government payments may also assist families in managing private healthcare costs.
Health Funds may pay rebates for some Allied Health or Nursing services and will cover eligible medical care for families who are not eligible for Medicare.
ADF and Veteran Families: Medicare rebates fees for the care of children of ADF members and veterans. Our providers do not accept DVA Gold or White Cards for payment of their care of your child nor bill DVA directly for care provided to children under DVA arrangements. Where care is provided to a parent, the account should be settled and the receipts submitted to your fund or the DVA for possible reimbursement. ADF parents can access a gap cover scheme for the out-of-pocket costs of care of their dependent children.
ndis funds cannot be accepted for payment for our medical specialists' services.
other fees that are not rebated include:
Fees for Late Payment; Unattended Appointments; Appointments not attended by the patient, the issue of prescriptions or completion of forms outside of appointments; invoices regarding damage to or excessive soiling of rooms and equipment,
a CURRENT REFERRAL IS necessARY FOR CLAIMING MEDICARE REBATES
If you wish to claim a rebate, you should ensure that your child’s current valid referral has been provided before the commencement of the appointment. More information about referrals provided Fees, Rebates & Referrals
when are fees to be paid?
The Fee Payment Policy below details our requirements, due dates and how we manage delayed settlement of accounts.
Cancellation Fees
A Cancellation Fee is charged for all appointments that are not attended by your child or cancelled with insufficient notice.
Sufficient notice is notice received and acknowledged by us at least 48 hours before the appointment over the business days prior to that appointment.
The 48-hour requirement is counted back from the start time of your appointment but only over business weekdays.
So, for example, for a Monday appointment at 10 am, you should let us know no later than 10 am on the prior Thursday.
your child must attend their appointment
Your child must attend and be able to interact with their doctor, or at least be examined and observed sufficiently for clinical requirements and in line with Medicare rules.
why this policy
Cancelling or organising to reschedule with sufficient time allows us to offer the time to other waiting families. Families need time to plan their attendance, and offering appointments with very short notice creates significant stress. Short notice makes it difficult for the practitioner to plan their time. Providers have limited time for clinics, and a non-attended appointment is never recoverable. Significant administrative costs are created in appointment booking and management and New Patient information provision, cancellation list management and file set-up services. These costs, together with the further costs created by late cancellation or nonattendance, will be unfunded unless a fee is charged to help mitigate this cost and ensure fairness to other families.
how much is The cancellation fee?
Your provider’s Cancellation Fees are set out in their Fee Schedule and a link to that Schedule is provided in the Booking Email. Cancellation Fees are inclusive of GST and not rebateable by Medicare. The fee is waived only for exceptional circumstances (see below), where good faith is evident and only at the manager’s discretion.
Booking Fee deposit:
A deposit equivalent to the expected gap may be required for any subsequent bookings in the following circumstances relating to any child in the family who is a patient of any associated provider:
there have been previous late cancellations or non-attendance without notice;
a New Patient appointment is not attended or cancelled with insufficient notice;
a parent engages in or has previously engaged in argumentation about any Cancellation Fees or Deposit requirement;
where a parent’s good faith is not indicated, or they have not followed the Respect & Trust Policy
and
This deposit will be applied to the payment of the appointment fee if your child attends but
The deposit will be converted to a non-refundable and non-rebated Cancellation Fee inclusive of GST if the appointment is not attended or cancelled with insufficient notice.
relevant considerations for waiver of the fee
There may be extenuating circumstances when short notice cancellations may be unavoidable for unforeseen reasons and where even giving notice of the non-attendance is impossible. In these cases, we encourage you to contact reception staff as soon as possible to advise the Practice Manager of your situation. Work requests, taking a holiday, changed social or parenting arrangements, school activities, inconvenience or changed priorities, for example, will not be considered sufficient to waive a Cancellation Fee. The appointment should be kept on Video if you are suffering mild viral symptoms and your doctor agrees this will be clinically useful. The Trust and Respect Policy applies.
Your appointment is time reserved & managed in your provider’s appointment book at your request.
We ask that you keep this commitment in mind.
We also ask that you promptly respond to any phone calls, emails or SMS from the practice concerning your appointment.
We hope you also appreciate that any request for cancellation and rescheduling creates extra costs
how to avoid a Fee for an unattended appointment
Carefully read and save your Booking Emails and schedule your appointment in your calendar or planner. A reminder booking Email is sent about 72 hours before the appointment. If you wish to cancel or reschedule, this will be the moment to do so to avoid a fee.
An SMS reminder is sent about 48 hours before the appointment as a courtesy and because busy parents sometimes forget about appointments. If you wish to cancel, please do so immediately to avoid a fee. It is best to notify us by email. If this is not possible, please call us and leave a voice mail if we cannot attend your call immediately. Do not seek to cancel by SMS Reply as this will probably be missed and result in a late cancellation fee..
Replying to our SMS with “Y” lets us know that you have not forgotten, are planning to attend, and have checked the appointment's date and time.
If you do not reply with a confirming “Y”, reception staff must allocate significant extra time and resources to contact you to clarify the situation.
We take our commitment to hold your booking seriously. We do not re-book the time that has been allocated to you unless certain you have cancelled. We are very aware of those on our Cancellation List who need an earlier appointment, but we also want to avoid stress for them with very last-minute offers.
Your Provider’s Fee Payment Policy
Terms, Conditions and Requirments for
Appointment Fees | Your Neonatal Care Invoice | or other Invoice
please click on and read carefully for important details about the terms and conditions and requirements for your Invoice including:
due dates; payment methods; joint parental responsibility for accounts; fees for delayed account settlements, including Late Fees, Debt Recovery Fees and managing any concerns about payment,
This Policy details the terms and conditions for settlement of any invoices issued by your provider.
Please phone or email if you have questions or concerns regarding your account.
Concessions
Concessions may only be agreed upon
for families with significant unexpected financial difficulties
whose child already has established healthcare relationships with associated providers.
Concessions, when agreed, will limited and targeted to facilitate:
continuity of care during short and temporary financial difficulty or
smooth handover of care to publicly funded or other lower-cost paediatric services.
Your provider has very significant practice overheads. Services are funded only through the fees charged for their services. Services are provided with less funding than the government provides in SA public paediatric healthcare services.
Your provider cares for children and young people from all over the greater metro area of Adelaide and all over the State. Fairness to families is a core priority in ensuring the sustainability of services to the standards desired by families who understand the tight links between these services and the fees.
Patients seeking bulk billed or lower-cost health care can access publicly funded services.
Families can have their child referred to bulk billed or public paediatric clinics at the Women’s and Children’s, Lyell McEwin and Modbury Hospitals or Flinders Medical Centre. Governments fully fund these paediatric services. Some private providers in the community may also offer bulk-billed or lower-cost paediatric services. Families may wish to organise a referral from their GP if requiring or preferring low-cost or free care.
Healthcare, pension, and concession cards are not a basis for agreeing on concessions.
Cardholders can access various government-funded benefits that significantly assist with many aspects of family healthcare costs. Extra publicly funded assistance through the PBS and Medicare Safety Net Schemes helps families with the costs of care in the private system.
Bulk billing is not offered for appointments with any providers associated with prosper paediatrics.
Requesting consideration for a concession:
Families who believe they may be eligible for temporary concessional assistance, as explained above, should complete the application form below. Responsibility for health care costs is borne by both a child’s parents, even if separated. Extended family resources and access to Medicare rebates and Safety Net rebates should be considered. The Practice Manager will discuss your situation with your provider and consider whether a concessional plan may be offered. We ask that any concerns be raised well before your appointment to allow time for an unhurried private conversation and to allow your provider’s consideration.