Communication and contact policies:
Email is our preferred way of communicating
Email is used as the primary means of communication by Prosper Paediatrics with families and patients. We use phone calls and SMS as adjuncts to email.
Communication by email helps us manage the extra complexity of specialist paediatric healthcare provision, billing and Medicare. It also helps our team reduce errors and manage inquiries and bookings effectively. Our patient families benefit from clearer, more reliable information and increased efficiency, which helps minimise the costs of services.
Prosper Paediatrics and the associated providers use patients' email addresses only when necessary for contact, providing information, and communicating about bookings, accounts and clinical matters.
Patient emails will not be used for marketing or other unnecessary purposes. Patient emails are stored securely and kept confidential.
You must ensure that at least a passphrase secures the email address provided to us and is only accessible to you, your child’s other parent or guardian, or your child if they are 16 years of age or older. Hence, a work email account provided by your employer is not suitable.
Please provide an email address that can be shown to your child’s other legally recognised parent or guardian as a recipient. This will not be required only when Court Orders have removed all parental responsibilities and access to information relating to their child’s health, development, from the other parent .
Our policy assists our management of workloads for workplace health & safety and cost containment
Email and Voicemail allow our team to manage and distribute their workload over the day and week.
Our team will act on your contact and communications. This may involve filing your request or document, entering your request in your doctor’s Task List, emailing you with a response, or phoning you if needed. If there is a large number of incoming communications or a staff shortage at any time, our response times will be slower. Our team will prioritise their response to more urgent or pressing requests and then attend to requests in the order they are received. Our response to or actioning of some requests can take extra time.
Please help us by writing a useful subject line, providing your child’s name in the email and voice mail, and submitting documents in one Pdf file rather than multiple image files. Please consider drafting and compiling a succinct update or set of questions and concerns for your doctor in one email and sending that for their reference in your next consultation.
Our careful management of workloads enables us to contain practice costs and improve workplace safety and staff wellbeing. This translates into the containment of fee increases.
If your email has been delivered to us, you will receive a templated auto-reply and acknowledgment.
By requesting information, appointments, and health care services with associated providers, parents, guardians, and carers will indicate their agreement to:
Remain readily contactable by Prosper Paediatrics and their health care provider at all times.
Promptly advise any changes to contact details.
Our use of email as a primary means of communication about booking, accounts and other administrative matters regarding their child's care.
Carefully read any emails we send to review and check details, requirements, and changes.
Our use of SMS alerts to parents’ mobile phone numbers about needed intake information, urgent emails, accounts, attempted phone contact and upcoming appointments.
Cancel an appointment by phone or email. Cancellation of an appointment by SMS is not an accepted form of notice. These messages may be delayed, are not suitable for any communication about clinical matters, and may be missed by by receptionists.
Their health care providers use email to provide letters, handouts, referrals, uncomplicated test results, request forms, and brief, uncomplicated advice.
Their providers use eScripts, wherever possible, rather than paper scripts.
Refrain from seeking medical consultation via email or phone call and to conduct consultations within booked appointments.
To interact and communicate with us according to Worksafe requirements and our Respect and Trust Policy.
Measures to protect privacy
Your health care provider and Prosper Paediatrics minimise the inclusion of sensitive or identifying content in emails and SMS, where possible, and use procedures, software systems and templates to reduce emailing errors and protect privacy.
Emails and any attached documents are usually filed in your child’s health record in the practice management software, if they have relevant content. All emails are also stored in our password-secured accounts in Google Workspace.
Paper documents are scanned, linked to your child’s file, and then shredded.
A medical consultation is a private space where sensitive matters can be discussed and noted directly in your child’s file.
We recommend that families minimise the inclusion of sensitive information in their emails to their providers.
Parents are responsible for providing passphrase-secured and private email addresses that can only be accessed by the patient's parents.
Email is not a completely secure form of communication and the associated providers and Prosper Paediatrics will take care to use software, procedures and templates to minimise the risk of error when emailing to patients. Prosper Paediatrics will endeavour to limit identifying information to protect your privacy. We recommend that families use private consultations in booked appointments to provide and discuss sensitive information with their provider.
Use of parent contact information
At any time, we require that at least one parent is entered as the primary contact for emails and SMS. That parent should undertake to forward to your child’s other parent/guardian, all the information needed by the other parent in accordance with your joint parental responsibilities, booking commitments and account responsibilities.
We may need to contact the other parent as well, in regard to clinical, account, billing or booking matters.
We may agree to or require the routine use of both parents’ emails when emailing.
Any Court Orders about parenting and contact should be provided in case they limit joint parental responsibility or access to information.
Please see our Joint Parental Responsibility Policy if you and your child’s other parent are separated or otherwise have concerns or questions.
Do you have serious privacy concerns about the disclosure of your address or contact details to your child’s other parent or another person?
Immediately advise us if you believe there is a serious need to withhold the following information from clinical letters, accounts and other documents relating to your child’s healthcare
you or your child’s residential address;
you or your child’s Medicare number.
You may have a serious need to keep this information from your child’s other parent or a third party. If this is the case, you must advise Prosper Paediatrics and your provider immediately in writing.
Incoming Correspondence, results, reports, requests, questions, messages for your provider:
Prosper Paediatrics is not an urgent care responder and does not triage.
All incoming correspondence is promptly filed and notified to providers within the practice software system for security and consistency.
Please use Email for all general updates, requests, and questions:
Sending documents: Only attach or upload complete documents; do not upload a document with multiple single page scans.
Health Professionals should use Healthlink for all patient correspondence to ensure certainty and minimise administration costs, as well as risks to data cybersecurity and your privacy.
Questions about appointments and referral status:
Please check your Booking Email and any links to this website for information about
an appointment
your child's referral status; if you believe a new referral has been sent after your latest Booking Email, please email us to ask if we have received it.
Requests, incoming documents and results:
Please visit the website for information and to use our online forms such as:
Various Request Forms
for New Patients, the Appointment Request Form;
to advise an address change or update Demographic Details.
Results are automatically delivered to your child’s file and alerted to the provider.
Requests are either resolved by the Reception Team, if possible or promptly entered into your Provider’s Task List for their attention.
Incoming correspondence and reports are promptly processed & filed for an upcoming appointment and alerted to your provider for their review.
Your provider will check incoming correspondence and tasks regularly. Families do not need to ask the reception team to remind them as they are alerted when they log in to the practice software.
However, your paediatric specialist doctor is not an urgent care responder.
Associated doctors have different practice styles and vary in the time taken to respond to consultation, forms and prescription requests. Most are part-time, and they all balance their private practice responsibilities with other professional and private responsibilities. Most generally undertake to check and respond to requests, etc, at least once a week. Some check more often. Your doctor will prioritise more urgent requests and may delay their response to non-urgent matters. They may check less frequently or ask colleagues to provide locum cover when on leave.
In all aspects of their practice, they will act in a timely way in accordance with their professional judgement and standards. The associated practitioners are very generous with their time and conscientious about the care they provide. We ask that families keep in mind their heavy workloads, professional responsibilities, and commitments.
Your specialist is not employed or directed by Prosper Paediatrics but practices independently with its services and administrative support.
A booked appointment is required for any consultation with your Provider.
Consultation about clinical matters should be conducted in a planned appointment, including any consultations about results, script renewals, most “quick questions," medication questions, or whenever a medical opinion, advice, explanations, or assistance is sought.
Your provider will advise you and us if they are happy, in a particular case, to offer a script, brief, uncomplicated advice or feedback using email or in a phone call at a suitable time. We strongly recommend that phone calls be booked, but if not, please be ready to take a call from the Prosper Paediatrics phone number, 8332 3778 or a private number.
Other care options and your healthcare team
Your GP remains your primary care provider, is informed about your specialist's management, and may be able to provide needed assistance more quickly.
Health care options for pressing concerns or outside business days and Christmas-New Year:
CAFHS-Child and Family Health Service (especially babies and young children)
GP- your family GP or GPs or other local GP clinics or urgent care clinics.
Hospital Midwives-for newborns
CAVUCS (Child and Adolescent Virtual Urgent Care Service for children from 6 months of age up to 18 years with non-life-threatening conditions)-ph-(08) 8161 7000 to organise a Video Appointment between 9 am-9 pm, 7 days a week, including public holidays.
Paediatric Emergency Department- for urgent or overnight concerns, your baby or child should attend your nearest Paediatric Emergency Department at the Women's and Children's, Flinders and Lyell McEwin Hospitals. For an Ambulance, dial 000.