FAQ

Please endeavour to have any prescriptions supplied to you during your consultations, or discuss this with your treating paediatrician at these appointments.

Request a Prescription Here

For any prescription requests outside these times, we ask that you allow at least seven days prior to your last prescription running out.

For stimulant medications for ADHD, the last prescription must be expiring within the month (government requirement.) By using this service you consent, if required, to a video consult, to clarify any details of the clinical progress of your child.

Our paediatricians are not at Paediatrics Ballarat every day and cannot guarantee prescriptions will be written earlier than seven days.

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.

Your Referral

To arrange an appointment at Paediatrics Ballarat you will require a referral from your General Practitioner, a referring hospital or other medical practitioner.

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, our reception staff will send you an SMS (text) and ask you to call our practice to request an appointment time.

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

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

School Reports

Please bring the child's recent School reports and teacher assessments

Once we have received and triaged your referral at Paediatrics Ballarat, we will send out an SMS informing you to call and book 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 3 business days for paediatric appointments and 7 days for allergy appointments, 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, the best alternative is to leave you message here, as our paediatricians do not offer formal telephone consultations.

If you have a new problem (not the one on the original referral) then we may require a new referral to manage that.

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 endeavour 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.

If your child requires further appointments after 3 months, a new referral will be required.