New Patient Referrals & obtaining Appointments

We ask that you read the information provided in this section of the website and follow the appropriate links for more details.

The use of email for essential communications, online information, and request forms will be an ongoing feature of your engagement with your provider and their reception team at Prosper Paediatrics. This approach allows us to provide excellent services on behalf of the associated doctors, cost-effectively, efficiently, accurately, and consistently. Together with the referral requirements, it helps providers keep their books open and care for as many children as possible. 

Please do not phone us. All the information needed is provided in this section of the website. The intake process requires

• Our receipt of one or more valid medical referrals, each personally addressed to an associated provider.

• Your completion of a Request Appointment Form

• Time ( a number of weeks) for the initial intake and consideration of the referral for acceptance or decline.

  • If your referral has not been received within a few days after your Appointment Request, we will aim to notify you. However, we are receiving many New Patient Appointment requests each day and do not have the resources to manage this as well as we would like. Provision of a referral is your responsibility. We recommend that referrers send referrals via Healthlink or email the referral to you so you can forward it to our email address. We do not recommend faxing.

If an associated doctor accepts your child’s referral,

• You will be notified by email of an offer of a place on the provider’s wait list for an appointment.

• You can then accept that wait list place by the completion of

  • Your full consent to all policies and

  • A demographic form for your child

• Appointments may then be offered. However, there may be a wait of many months, especially if the provider has not triaged your child’s referral as urgent. Appointments may be offered at short notice. If you wish to obtain an appointment as soon as possible, we strongly recommend that you remain contactable, be alert to our emails, phone calls, and SMS, and be familiar with our Intake and Cancellation Offer Procedures.

New Patient Referrals- information for families

Referrals should be addressed by name and sent via HealthLink (or another secure messaging service).

Some specialists have closed their books.

Most specialists’ books are open, but not all referrals can be accepted; wait times vary.

These specialists have cancellation lists and may bring forward appointments where possible, provided their private practice continues. Priority is given to referrals triaged as more urgent.

If your child’s referral is accepted but triaged as non-urgent or less urgent, they will be placed on a wait list until current capacity constraints allow appointments to be offered.

Which providers are considering referrals and their wait times:

For important information about referral and the intake process, please go to:

Referrals- must be individually addressed because

• Providers have very severe capacity constraints.

• Each associated doctor practices independently to provide healthcare and is not employed by or directed by Prosper Paediatrics.

• Prosper Paediatrics is not a healthcare provider and cannot triage or allocate referrals, but instead provides administrative services and facilities to the associated doctors.

and referrals convey your consent to share information with nominated doctors.

• Privacy requirements and responsibilities require that the referral letter be personally addressed to a provider. The referral conveys your consent to the sharing, collection and use of personal information with that nominated provider for the consideration of the referral by that nominated provider, and for intake procedures. If the referral is accepted, your consent is in place for the sharing, collection and use of information to provide healthcare until the expiry of the referral term.

• However, if your child’s referral is addressed to Dr A, you can provide a written consent to have this referral addressed to Dr B. We provide an online form for this at: https://prosperpaediatrics.au/referral-direction-consent

• You may withdraw your consent and ask that we deactivate the referral, close the intake, and, if an appointment has been booked, cancel it. Such requests should be made in writing and without delay.
  

Associated Provider’s Fees

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 available here: fee payment, bookings, fees & cancellations; click here for information about the role of Medicare: Medicare rebates. ‍ ‍

You can view the providers’ fee schedules here.

Please ensure you understand and accept these requirements, terms and conditions if you wish to request or accept an appointment.

Concerns regarding Fees:

As a private practice, services are funded only by patient fees. Your fees allow your doctor to provide excellent, enhanced continuity of care, with budgets that are substantially lower than those in the public system.  Unfortunately, concessions cannot be offered to New or Returning Patients. 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.