Short appointment
These are booked in 15-minute intervals. You can expect about 10 minutes of consultation time, as additional time is needed to review and write notes, letters, add reminders, and complete any other admin tasks related to your appointment.

Long appointment
These are booked in 30-minute intervals. You can expect about 20–25 minutes of consultation time.

Extra-long appointment
These are booked in 45- to 60-minute intervals, depending on your needs. You can expect at least 40 minutes of consultation time.

Video Telehealth consultations are available, however a face to face appointment is preferred for our first meeting for improved quality of care. This will also enable you to receive your Medicare rebate. With very few exceptions, Medicare will not pay a rebate to patients who have initial consultations via Telehealth, or who have not had an in-person consultation with me (or another doctor at the clinic) in the preceding 12 months.

It depends. Here are some thoughts to help you figure out the right appointment length:

1. New or existing patient
If this is your first appointment with me, please book a long appointment if you have multiple or complex concerns.

2. Nature of the Visit
Why are you visiting? Brief checks like ears or blood pressure, simple skin checks, or discussing a single concern might only need a short appointment. More complex issues, multiple concerns, or discussions regarding chronic conditions might need longer appointments.

3. Complexity of care needs
If you have mental health concerns, complex health concerns, multiple symptoms, or chronic conditions, please book a longer appointment.

This gives us more time to address everything adequately. If your concerns are very complex, you might need an extra-long appointment, or we might have to schedule a number of appointments.

4. Previous Visits
If you've had similar appointments with me before, how long did those discussions take? This can provide a rough idea of the time needed for the current issue.

5. Additional Needs
If you need more time to tell me about your concerns, or need more time to take the information in, have lots of questions, require procedures, vaccinations, or additional services during the visit, these may need a longer appointment.

Please note that for most procedures, I will need to examine you first and work out a suitable plan with you. The procedure itself will almost always need to be done in a separate appointment.

6. Follow-up or Review
For follow-up visits to discuss test results or review ongoing treatments, a shorter appointment might suffice.

7. Discuss with the admin
If all else fails and you're still unsure how long you need, call the clinic. You can talk to the admin staff to explain a little bit about why you need to see me, and they can help you choose an appropriate appointment length.

Running on time
The unpredictable nature of General Practice sometimes causes unavoidable delays. I do try to minimise delays where I can to avoid keeping people waiting a long time.

If you book a longer appointment and we complete the consultation using less time, you will only be charged for the time used.

If we need more time than was booked, I may need you to book another appointment to continue the consultation another day if I don’t have unbooked appointment spaces following yours.

If I have time to run longer in the consultation, I am pleased to do so. Your fee will increase, and your Medicare rebate may or may not change in this situation, in line with Medicare rules and the length and nature of the consultation.

The fees for my services also include the time I spend preparing for your visit outside of our consultations.

All fees are payable at the completion of the appointment.

The following fees will be charged from 01 July 2024:

My fee structure is designed to accommodate the length and complexity of the general consultations I provide.

Short appointments less than 15 minutes cost $96.00.

After the initial 15 minutes, every additional 5 minutes or part thereof costs $32.00.

This way, patients only pay for the time I spend with them and on their consultation, rather than having to pay for a full long appointment if their visit extends beyond a short appointment but not the full length of a long appointment.

Medicare has fixed rebates that apply to general consultations of 6-19 minutes, 20-39 minutes, 40-59 minutes, and over 60 minutes, as well as rebates for mental health care plans lasting 20-39 minutes, and over 40 minutes. These rebates will apply to your consultation depending on your eligibility under Medicare and are refunded to your bank account by Medicare Australia following payment of your account.

Some specific appointment types have a different fee structure. This includes:

• ADHD pre-assessment and treatment initiation
  ADHD pre-assessment and initial management consultations will be booked for up to 1 hour and charged at the general pro-rata consultation rate. Additional fees apply for psychologic screening questionnaires ($50.00)

ADHD review appointments once treatment is stable are booked for 30 minutes at the general consultation rates. You are welcome to request a longer time for ADHD review appointments if you have other important matters to discuss. The general pro-rata billing rate will apply.

Due to the nature and complexity of ADHD assessment, treatment and review, there is generally no additional time available in ADHD assessment and initial treatment consultations to discuss other non-urgent health matters unless you request extra time when booking in. If you do not request extra time when booking in, you will be welcome to raise other health concerns in the consultation; however, you should expect to have to rebook another appointment to address those concerns unless they are clinically urgent and need to be dealt with on the day.

• Procedures
  All procedures require an assessment consultation (charged at the general rates) before the day of the procedure itself to determine the clinical need, discuss the treatment, its potential risks, expected benefits, aftercare, and expected fees, possible Medicare rebates, and document your understanding of the treatment and fees, as well as your consent to have the procedure and pay the fees as estimated when due.

• Medical Termination of pregnancy (MTOP)
  MTOP is available in community general practice for women up to 9 weeks pregnant. If you are over 9 weeks pregnant, you will need to have an in-hospital MTOP or a surgical termination of pregnancy (STOP).

The MTOP service comprises a 1-hour appointment and up to a 30-minute follow-up 2 weeks later, which you must attend to confirm the pregnancy has ended. Blood tests and obstetric ultrasound results need to be available at the time of the initial appointment so you will need to have an appointment with myself or another GP of your choice to arrange those tests prior to the MTOP consultation. If you see a different GP for this, please request the results be sent to me. Any costs related to those tests are not included in my fee. You will also be required to have a blood test before the follow-up appointment.

The total fee is $475.00 which covers the cost of both appointments. A deposit is required to secure your appointment, which is non-refundable if you don’t attend or if you cancel any later than the day before the appointment.

The initial 1-hour appointment includes necessary counseling, discussion of results, explanation of the procedure, answering any questions and obtaining your consent.

There is usually no additional out-of-pocket cost for the follow-up appointment.

If you have further questions regarding the fees, please email admin@drmattharvey.com.au

Your Medicare rebate, if eligible, will vary depending on the nature of the consultation and the length of the consultation, in accordance with Medicare rules and regulations.

Unfortunately, Federal Governments over several decades have not ensured your Medicare rebates have kept up with CPI increases and the increasing costs of providing quality medical care.

The latest indexation of your Medicare Rebate only increased some of your rebates by 3.5%, while health care provision costs have increased by 6.1% from 2023 to 2024. Your rebate will decrease relative to time spent and is lower for purely mental health consultations than for general consultations.

Medicare has fixed rebates that apply to general consultations of 6–19 minutes, 20–39 minutes, 40–59 minutes, and over 60 minutes, as well as rebates for mental health care plans lasting 20–39 minutes and over 40 minutes.

This can be important to consider for your health care budgeting. Whilst you may prefer to have longer consultations, your Medicare rebate will be higher relative to the consultation fee for shorter consultations than it would be for longer consultations. But 4 consultations on 4 separate days come with extra travel and time costs for you.

Your out-of-pocket gap expenses do contribute to your Extended Medicare Safety Net threshold. Once you have reached the EMSN threshold for the year, your rebate will increase to up to 80% of the out-of-pocket fee for the remainder of the calendar year.

For 2024, the EMSN threshold for concession card holders is $811.80 and $2544.30 for non-concessional patients and families.