New Patients- Referral to an associated paediatrician.
We ask that you read the information provided.
The information has been made available to assist as much as possible, but without any funding. Further administrative service is beyond our capacity to provide.
We recommend that you make an appointment with your GP to work through and discuss this information, if you need further support.
New Patient Referrals to associated paediatricians
Referrals must be sent by Secure Messaging.
Referrals to paediatricians may be accepted, but many must be declined.
Due to extremely long wait times and very tight bookings, the associated paediatricians have no or only very limited capacity to accept new patient referrals.
Triage and wait times
Paediatrician appointments may have waits of several years, but earlier appointments may be offered for more urgent cases.
Other referral or care options and resources if
your child’s referral is not accepted or
there will be a long wait for an appointment
Paediatricians whose books are currently closed to all new patient referrals:
Doctors Marianne Yanni, Josie Nozza, Noha Soliman
Dr Yanni is extremely tightly booked. She reluctantly closed her books following bookings extending into early 2028. Her only new patient intake is via neonate referral at Burnside Hospital.
Dr Soliman is now winding down her private practice and intends to close it by mid-2025, as she is a full-time staff specialist at Flinders Medical Centre.
The following Paediatricians’ books are open but referral must be by Secure Messaging only:
Brian Conway, Rishi Agrawal, Dr Kavita Rasiah, Rebecca Holst, Jane Smith and Dr Thu Kent
Referrals to these General Paediatricians will be returned if provided by email, fax, post or in person. Referrals should be sent by Secure Messaging (Healthlink, Argus, Medical Objects, ReferralNet).
Referral clinical criteria that may be considered for acceptance:
These paediatricians may consider acceptance of a referral if
it details significant or serious clinical concerns and a need for specialist paediatrician assessment, diagnosis and management regarding
medical concerns in infants, children and adolescents*.
infant, toddler & preschooler developmental concerns.
and previous, current, or planned clinical or allied health assessments, management or therapeutic pathways, referrals, and interventions for the concern.
*Dr Kent will generally accept new patient referrals of this kind for children under 5 years of age.
Dr Rasiah is also happy to accept referrals for paediatric infectious disease concerns.
Doctors Conway, Rasiah, Kent, Holst and Yanni also accept private neonate referrals for care following birth at Burnside, Calvary North Adelaide and Ashford Hospitals.
Referrals about ASD. ADHD, mental health and behaviour? If for children from school age through to adolescence, these referrals are not being accepted currently.
Each paediatrician’s decision to accept a referral will be based on their professional discretion and judgement regarding their capacity, practice scope and style and current patient responsibilities.
New patient referrals prior to 19/03/2025
If your child has not yet been offered an appointment and the referral does not meet the above criteria, it is very unlikely that an appointment will be offered. If the paediatrician declines it, they will notify your referrer. We will advise you of the outcome by email if you have provided an email address or otherwise, by SMS if we have your phone number.
Referral for ADHD or Autism Spectrum(ASD) Diagnosis?
Referrals for these assessments are generally no longer being accepted due to current capacity constraints.
For current or previously accepted patients who are waiting for a first appointment regarding ASD concerns, the associated paediatricians may provide a provisional diagnosis and refer or recommend a formal assessment. They will generally not offer to do a formal assessment themselves. We recommend that families undertake a diagnostic assessment with a psychologist for ASD, ADHD, or other mental health, behavioural or learning concerns.
If formally diagnosed, the paediatrician may be able to offer a follow-up appointment for an item 135 service if the patient has an appointment on their books.
Psychologists can assess, diagnose and report on ADHD, ASD, and a range of other developmental, learning and mental health conditions such as anxiety. They may conduct formal ASD assessments with a Speech Therapist and produce a Joint Report.
Psychologists and other Allied Health Providers can provide therapy for ASD, ADHD and other concerns.
The current situation-important information:
Recently booked non-urgent new patients have significant waits for their appointments. Some are currently waiting well over two years for their appointment with a paediatrician. We cannot advise which paediatrician has sooner availability due to variations in the size of their private practices, other professional and personal responsibilities, and practice styles. Every effort is made to move patient appointments forward when possible, especially those with a higher triage.
Check this website for updates.
Appointments with longer wait times may be cancelled later. Your paediatrician may unexpectedly need to delay or cancel your child’s appointment due to illness or other circumstances or may unexpectedly close their private practice at Prosper Paediatrics. In this circumstance, other associated doctors may be able to offer an appointment, but there may be further delay, or an appointment may no longer be possible.
An appointment must be booked to be on a cancellation list.
Referrals must be addressed to a particular paediatrician by name to ensure they can be reviewed.
Your doctor can provide a named referral to more than one paediatrician.
Referrals to paediatricians whose books are open should be sent only by Healthlink, Argus, Medical Objects or Referral Net.
Most Paediatrics referrals will be declined due to severe capacity constraints.
Referrals sent to Dr Yanni, Dr Soliman, Dr Nozza will not be reviewed and will be returned as their books are closed.
Referrals sent by email, fax, post, or hand delivered to Doctors Conway, Agrawal, Rasiah, Smith, Holst, and Kent will not be considered and will be returned.
New Patient referral to a paediatrician- intake steps.
Your referrer sends a valid, detailed and comprehensive referral to one of the associated paediatricians whose books are still open,
addressed to them by name.
by Secure Messaging (Healthlink, etc).
2. You submit the Appointment Request Form.
To do so, you will have reviewed the policies, especially regarding Privacy, Communication & Contact, Respect & Trust and ensured you are happy to proceed in accordance with them. You can review these in the website menu “Policies” and in the policies summary.
3. The nominated Paediatrician reviews the referral in the next several weeks (at least) and will either
DECLINE the referral and notify the referrer.
ACCEPT the referral and
TRIAGE it to decide on the level of need for priority when offering earlier appointments that may become available.
OFFER AN APPOINTMENT.
4. If the referral is accepted, we send an SMS to you
This SMS details the offered appointment and advises the link to our webpage explaining how to accept this offer and a place on the Cancellation List. We may also send a Booking Offer email if we have your email address.
5. You must then accept the offered appointment within seven days by submission of the requested forms.
Having carefully reviewed the policies, terms and conditions of the appointment and healthcare relationship offer, and decided that you are happy to proceed in accordance with these, you complete and submit
6. If not accepted within seven days, the Appointment Offer will be withdrawn, and the intake process for your child will be closed. If you decline or do not accept this offer but wish to consider a further appointment offer, please advise us by email.
How do Appointments become available to New Patients?
The Doctors’ appointment books have reserved times for various needs, including urgent patients. If these times are no longer needed or families cancel their appointments, we may then offer the time to new patients. Sometimes, these appointments become available at quite short notice.
We take great care to avoid appointments being wasted and to bring appointments forward wherever possible. Generally, we expect to move many appointments forward, a little or a lot, depending on urgency, over the next several years.
Cancellation Offer Procedure
If an appointment is offered and accepted, your child will be placed on the Cancellation List.
Your Provider’s Fees:
We routinely send you a link to your doctor's fee schedule in your Booking Emails. Providers do not offer bulk billing, and fees must be paid on the day immediately following your child’s appointment. Information about your provider’s fee policies is linked here: fee payment, bookings, fees & cancellations, and Medicare rebates.
Please ensure you understand and accept these requirements, terms and conditions if you wish to accept an appointment.
Concerns regarding Fees:
As a private practice, services are funded only by patient fees. Your fees allow us to work efficiently to help your doctor provide excellent, enhanced continuity of care with budgets that are substantially less than those provided by the government in the public system. Medicare provides substantial assistance, but we understand that some families will prefer or need to seek free public health or lower-cost services. If so, ask your GP, as soon as possible, to redirect the referral to the appropriate public paediatric health service for your area, whether that is the Women's and Children's, Flinders, Lyell McEwin or Modbury Hospitals or a lower-cost private service. The providers do not offer bulk billing and, unfortunately, concessions cannot be offered.
Managing during the wait for an appointment or when not able to see a paediatrician- Options and Resources
Autism concerns.
For older children, you can consider self-referral to an allied health diagnostic team or just a Psychologist for ASD Diagnostic Assessment. Your child’s psychologist or other allied health therapists of GP may be able to advise on whether this assessment is something they would recommend for your child. Working with a psychologist under a GP Mental Health Care Plan Referral may help shed light on whether an ASD Assessment might be helpful.
Referral Options for Concerns regarding Attention, hyperactivity, learning, anxiety etc.
GP Mental Health Care Plan Referrals: Older children and adolescents can see a psychologist for diagnostic assessment of anxiety, learning, attention and other issues. The psychologist can consider a range of factors or conditions that may underly your child’s concerns. Psychologists and Occupational Therapists can work with children and adolescents to help manage and improve symptoms, school performance, relationships and general life challenges. Discuss a Mental Health Plan Referral with your GP to access up to 10 rebated sessions per year.
Auditory Processing Disorder Assessments: Families can self-refer a child to an Audiologist but may benefit from discussing this option with their child’s psychologist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, audiologist or GP. Auditory Processing Disorder can be an issue for children who may appear to have difficulties with attention but, in fact, have challenges in processing the sound and language environment around them and in their classrooms.
Referral options for Mental Health and behaviour concerns.
GP Mental Health Care Plan Referral: Your child’s GP can refer your child to a psychologist for up to 10 sessions of therapy and any needed assessment for your child’s behavioural or mental health concerns.
Play Therapy may be helpful for children up to 11 years old for behavioural, attachment, anxiety, trauma and emotional dysregulation concerns.
GP referral to a Child Psychiatrist: For complex mental health concerns, your GP may refer your child to a child psychiatrist or CAMHS (publicly funded service) for care or at least one psychiatrist appointment to provide management guidance to the GP.
Adult services for older adolescents? Young people aged at least 16 and older may be able to satisfactorily access adult services or at least get onto the wait list for these.
Various online programs and services for all ages
Paediatric Sub-Specialist Referral
Paediatric sub-specialists can often see paediatric patients more quickly than paediatricians. They may recommend a referral to a general paediatrician after they have reviewed the child. Your GP may issue concurrent referrals to a paediatrician and a subspecialist.
An adult subspecialist may be happy to see an older adolescent.
Subspecialties include gastroenterology, gynaecology, rheumatology, orthopaedics, psychiatry, endocrinology etc.
More information about these of other services
Our website has links to services, resources or programs that may assist your child.
To request an appointment with one of the associated paediatricians,
ensure your GP has sent a referral to them by Secure Messaging
please complete and submit the Request Appointment Form: