"It's far more important to know what person has the disease than what disease the person has."
Hippocrates 400BC
Yarralumla Surgery is a privately billing general practice.
DVA patients are welcome.
Yarralumla Surgery is very busy. We encourage you to give at least 24 hours notice of cancellation. Unattended appointments may be charged a fee which is unclaimable from Medicare.
Specialist doctors have individual cancellation policies which will be outlined at the time of making your initial appointment.
Yarralumla Surgery has an afterhours agreement with CALMS 1300 422 567 and National Home Doctor Service 137425. Both of these services are open for patient consultations when we are closed, including throughout the night and can be used by our patients rather than attending the emergency department for non-urgent related health issues. Both afterhours services will also send your GP a summary of their visit to be stored within your patient file and also alert your GP when follow up is required. It’s worth noting that hospitals also do this. GPs do home visits for patients on a case by case basis.
When you require a repeat prescription we request that you allow a reasonable amount of time to make an appointment to see your regular doctor. In cases of urgent need, at the discretion of your regular doctor, a repeat prescription may be written without a consultation. A small administration fee is charged for this service, for which there is no Medicare rebate.
Yarralumla Surgery has been using HotDoc for over 12 months now. You can book using the mobile app or via the widget on the home page of our website. We also have book on the day appointments that we hold that become available from 8.30am. If you are unwell on the day please call us to discuss an urgent appointment as even when we run out of book on the day appointments we will always triage and fit patients in that require a consultation on the day. As a general rule we will also fit children in on the day if they are unwell.
Medical Certificates are a legal document. It is illegal to back date medical certificates and they will only be issued for genuine medical conditions that require time off from work or study.
To obtain a medical certificate you must have a consultation with a doctor. A small fee may be charged for replacement medical certificates.
Referrals ensure that you are referred to the appropriate specialists. Medicare does not allow backdated referrals. Repeat referrals written without a consultation may incur a small administration fee.
We know that wait times to see the GP are the patient’s biggest frustration. And I can honestly assure you the same frustration is felt by all the team at Yarralumla Surgery also. We want to run on time and we have made huge adjustments over the past 4 years to decrease the time patients spend in our waiting room. Obviously during COVID this became a massive focus. Since 2019 four GPs have increased their standard appointments to 20 minute consultations from 15 minute consultations. Our reception staff have been training to advise the patient on arrival how late the GP is running if it’s more than a 15 minute wait. However as you can imagine sometimes this changes drastically. Generally the reason it changes is due to a patient needing that time with the GP due to not realising how unwell they are. We do encourage patients to call 30 minutes prior to their appointment & we can give you a fairly good indication on how the doctor is running. Please note doctors are generally running well first thing in the morning or first thing after lunch. Please also enquire with us if you think you may need a long appointment.
We recommend that patients return for a follow up consultation to discuss the results of all tests. However, if you choose not to return for a consultation we ask that you call to be advised of the results of your tests over the phone.
Patient privacy is a priority at Yarralumla Surgery. All your information is treated strictly according to the national guidelines. All of our staff have signed a confidentiality agreement. A copy of our privacy policy is available at reception and our privacy policy is also outlined on our ‘new patient’ information sheet, we ask for your signature as an authority of understanding.
Please note that it is a legal requirement that we ask all patients if they are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage.
All patients are automatically enrolled in our internal recall and reminder system for regular health checks such as pap smears. Please let your doctor know if you do not want this to occur.
Notification of all pap smears, childhood immunisations and some adult vaccinations will be provided to the relevant national registry. Please advise your doctor if you do not wish this to occur.
As you no doubt understand, it is unfair to the patient who is seeing the doctor if his/her consultation is frequently disrupted by telephone calls. Unless the doctor is free or has no patient with him/her, or if the matter is urgent, the receptionist will take down the details and the doctor will return your call at a later time. In the interest of devoting maximum time to their patients, the doctors in this practice will not answer phone calls related to surveys or commercial canvassing.
Please note that our email address is not monitored outside of normal business hours - 8.30am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday. We are closed Public Holidays. For appointments & Clinical Care please contact reception on (02) 62823899.
Email is a great tool for patient to use when they want to communicate with us regarding some issues like clarification of your appointment time, fees or sending in documents following your consultation. However, it is the wrong channel to use if the matter is relating to your Clinical Care. For example but not limited too; new symptoms, illness, infection or change or increase in your medication. We ask that when it comes to clinical issues that you contact us via telephone within business hours so we can triage accordingly. Furthermore if the matter is urgent please call 000 or present to the closest Emergency Department immediately. We cannot guarantee the confidentiality of any information sent via unencrypted e-mail. If you wish to cease communication via unsecure email (keeping in mind the information we provide to you in response maybe of a sensitive nature) then please send a response to this email withdrawing your consent to this communication method.
We welcome any comments and feedback which would help to improve our service and from time to time we will conduct surveys to discover how our patients view us and to identify areas of weakness and strength. Please feel free to discuss any problems with the reception staff or the doctor. If you prefer to leave a note, please do so at reception.
More serious complaints may be directed to:
Human Rights Commission
Telephone (02) 6205 2222 SMS 0466 169997 TTY (02) 6205 1666 FAX 6207 1034 LOCATION Level 2, 11 Moore Street Canberra City POSTAL ADDRESS GPO Box 158 Canberra ACT 260
We prefer if you discuss any complaint with the practice manager or the doctor prior to action where this is possible.