Dr Friel’s extended care service is designed to provide timely and convenient access to Dr Friel and his medical expertise. Dr Friel and Currumbin Medical Centre currently strive to provide a high quality, efficient and equitable primary care to their patients and community. However, there may be times in your healthcare journey where you would like a more responsive service than is normally provided by most General Practices.
This service is only available to select patients who understand the costs and benefits of Extended Care and have confirmed that it will be of value to them.
Why use Extended Care?
Your Time
Doctors are notorious for not running on time and this is can be explained by the unpredictable nature of some presentations.
However, if your doctor is running late it can impact your social, family and work commitments.
Sometimes these delays can lead to significant financial impacts through missed business, lost work hours or professional reputational damage.
Patients participating in Extended Care will be prioritised for appointments that are likely to be on time, such as the first of the day or first after lunch and Dr Friel will recognise that participants place a priority on punctuality and adjust bookings to make sure that your appointment is available when you expect it.
If any appointment starts more than 15 minutes after the scheduled start time due to an unforeseeable emergency, Dr Friel will ensure this consultation is bulk billed.
Your Health
At certain times you may want more timely and convenient healthcare than your GP currently provides.
Examples include the birth of a child (especially for first time mothers), a new serious health diagnosis (such as cancer), or a new commitment to get your health back on track after a period of neglect.
In these times, being confident that you can access the doctor of your choice, who is aware of your individual circumstances, can provide peace of mind.
Having continuity of care means that decisions can be made more rapidly and effectively and you can seek reassurance or review if your circumstance change at short notice.
Your Doctor
Beyond offering appropriate clinical care, Dr Friel is keen to offer the type of service his patients want with after hours consultations, home visitation and accessibility.
Dr Friel and most General Practitioners cannot offer this type of service universally due to both financial and practical limitation. Currently, if demand for your doctor’s time outstrips supply, it results in a lack of available appointments and delays in accessing care. Delays may result in avoidable adverse outcomes.
Dr Friel hopes that you would consider him as your family doctor with the knowledge that if you ever need extended care that he is available for you when you need him.
How is Extended Care Funded?
The service is provided to a limited number of patients through private patient contributions to any and all health services delivered by Dr Friel for the duration of their voluntary participation in the extended care service.
Frequent healthcare appointments with Dr Friel and patients who already experience out of hospital costs associated with their healthcare may be eligible for the Extended Medicare Safety Net which means that once out of pocket cost passes a threshold limit, up to 80% of the out of pocket costs for out of hospital expenses are covered by Medicare. It is possible to register as a family or couple so that the threshold can be exceeded sooner. If one family member has significant out of pocket expenses, other members of a Safety Net Family can also access the Extended Medicare Safety Net.
There is no requirement to have any private health insurance to be eligible. The threshold is different depending on patient circumstances and is lower for individuals or families that are Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holders, Health Care Card holders, Pensioner Concession Card holders or eligible for Family Tax Benefit Part A.
Reaching the Extended Medicare Safety Net will also reduce the out of pocket expenses associated with specialist outpatient visits or allied health providers accessed through Medicare. Private health insurance often does not cover these outpatient costs.
You can see how far away you are from reaching the Extended Medicare Safety Net by logging into your my.gov.au account and clicking on Medicare or by downloading the Express Plus Medicare Mobile app.
Consultation Fees and Rebates
Terms and Conditions
- Appointments are considered to be “on time” provided that the consultation begins within 15 minutes of the scheduled starting time. It is a requirement that patients arrive on time for any booked appointment.
- Any urgent on the day appointments are likely to be an extra on an already busy day so the on-time-or-bulk-billed guarantee does not apply
- Urgent on the day appointments are typically only available on days where Dr Friel is currently consulting. Dr Friel Intends to maintain at least four regular days per week. If you are seeking an urgent appointment outside of regular consulting days/hours then efforts will be made to accommodate this but cannot be guaranteed.
- The Extended Medicare Safety Net is funded by the Commonwealth Government. It is recommended that patients ensure they understand their eligibility.
- The fees detailed above are a condensed list and a full list will be provided to patients who are intending on participating in the extended care service. Medicare rebates may change over time.
- Home visitations will typically need to be booked at least 24 hours in advance. The timing of this will vary depending on Dr Friel’s availability.
- There will not be any change in the quality of the service provided by Dr Friel with or without participation in the Extended Care Service and patients can choose to return to the standard services provided at Currumbin Medical Centre at any time. While participating in the Extended Care Service patients are expected to pay the fees they have been advised of.
- Changes to the conditions or eligibility to the Extended Medicare Safety Net will not have an impact on the current fees for this service.
- After hours phone consults will be initiated through a paging service. While Dr Friel will typically be able to consult with you, there may be times when Dr Friel is unable to reply in a timely manner. If no response is received within 15 minutes then please consider other health care options.
- It is not recommended that Dr Friel is contacted for potentially serious emergencies e.g. chest pain.
- Dr Friel’s typically works 4 weekdays but may be available on additional days if discussed and confirmed in advance.
- On occasions Dr Friel will take leave or be unavailable due to unforeseeable issues, such as illness or family emergencies. Patients participating in the Extended Care service will be given as much notice as possible and during these periods Currumbin Medical Centre will still be available.
- Some services e.g. skin excisions, ECGs, Iron infusions etc. Can only be provided during regular consulting hours at Currumbin Medical Centre.