To arrange an appointment at Paediatrics Ballarat you will require a referral from your General Practitioner, a referring hospital or other medical practitioner (e.g. specialist, such as Obstetrician & Gynaecologist).

This referral is then sent to our rooms and triaged by the paediatrician to whom the referral has been addressed. If your referral is considered urgent, a time and date will be booked, and our reception staff will contact you. For all other referrals, you are required to call our practice and request the appointment. Failure to call within 60 days of the referral being received by us will result in the referral being rejected and a letter being sent back to your referring doctor.

If your referring doctor feels that the booked appointment is too far away, they may call our practice to discuss.

Please note that we are unable to book patients for appointments with our paediatricians until we have received a valid referral for a medical professional.

At Paediatrics Ballarat we will send out an SMS informing you that we have received your referral.

If you ring and book your appointment:

Once you have booked your appointment, we will send a letter confirming the appointment date and outlining our fees.

If you do not ring and book an appointment:

No appointment will be made, and your referring medical practitioner will receive a letter after 60 days if you have not contacted us to organise an appointment.

Each paediatrician has different waiting times depending on their consulting days and availability. Generally, these waiting times vary from several weeks to several months. For more details, please click here.

If your referral is considered urgent, a time and date will be booked and our reception staff will contact you. For all other referrals, after you contact our practice you will be allocated to the next available appointment time. If your referring doctor feels that the booked appointment is too far away, they may call our practice to discuss this.

If you have an URGENT medical problem, your local Emergency Department can assess your child that day. Please note that we do not have an Emergency Department at Paediatrics Ballarat, nor do we accept patients for urgent matters without referrals being received first.

Please bring your Medicare card and the patient information and consent sheet that you will be sent by Paediatrics Ballarat beforehand.

If you have any of the following, please ensure you bring them along to your appointment:

• reports regarding your child from other services providers (GP, medical specialists, speech therapist, occupational therapist, psychologist, etc.)
• assessment results (psychology assessments, cognitive assessments, school reports, allied health assessments, etc)
• letters from relevant services (school, kinder, carers, etc.)
• Your Maternal & Child Health record (blue book or green folder)
• Any notes you have made about your child or questions you may have. It is always useful to write these items down prior to your child’s appointment.

You will receive a text message (SMS) prior to your appointment to confirm your appointment time and date. Please ensure we have an updated mobile phone number for this purpose.

If you are unable to attend your booked appointment, please let us know as early as possible so that we can offer this time to another patient on the waiting list.

If you don’t notify us of a cancellation more than 24 hours before an appointment, a fee will be charged. This fee is required to be paid prior to any future appointments.

It remains the family’s responsibility to book another appointment if you have cancelled or missed an appointment. If you miss consecutive appointments without prior notification, further appointments may not be offered.

Paediatrics Ballarat is a private billing medical practice. All payments for consultations are required on the day of the appointment. A proforma of approximate fees will be forwarded to you prior to your first appointment with us.

Please note that we accept payments via Visa, Mastercard, EFTPOS and cash. We are unable to accept personal cheques.

Our reception staff will do their best to answer telephone questions, however they will often need to leave a message with your paediatrician to contact you when they are next available. We are generally unable to attend to urgent matters via telephone given our paediatricians are often consulting with patients, or attending to work commitments outside Paediatrics Ballarat.

If you have complex questions or multiple issues to discuss, please consider booking an appointment, as our paediatricians do not offer formal telephone consultations.

Referrals from General Practitioners last for 12 months, although it is possible to obtain an ‘indefinite’ referral providing this is stipulated on the referral. After the 12 month period, you are required to obtain a new referral prior to your next paediatric appointment, otherwise you are unable to access the Medicare rebate for that consultation. It is the responsibility of the patient/family to obtain referrals, not the staff at Paediatrics Ballarat. We will endeavor to remind you when a new referral is required.

Referrals from specialists last for only 3 months and cannot be extended. You will therefore be asked to arrange a new referral (preferably from your General Practitioner) after this period if your initial referral has come from a specialist.

For newborns who required paediatric care in hospital, your Obstetricians referral at that point is valid for 3 months, and a 6-week check will be covered by this referral. If your child requires further appointments after 3 months, a new referral will be required.

Please endeavour to have any prescriptions supplied to you during your consultations, or discuss this with your treating paediatrician at these appointments. For any prescription requests outside these times, we ask that you allow at least seven days prior to your last prescription running out. Our paediatricians are not at Paediatrics Ballarat every day and cannot guarantee prescriptions will be written earlier than seven days.

Note that there will generally be a fee charged for prescriptions requested outside of consultation times.

Please note that certain medications require prescriptions to be written during consultations, and cannot be requested via telephone. No prescriptions will be written prior to an initial appointment with a paediatrician at Paediatrics Ballarat; these need to be obtained from your previous treating doctor. Your local general practitioner may also be able to assist for urgent prescription requirements of certain medication.