Patients are able to contact the practice via telephone between the hours of 8am and 5pm Monday to Friday. Telephone calls from patients will not generally be put through to doctors and so patients are encouraged to make a face-to-face or telehealth appointment to speak with the Doctor unless it’s a medical emergency. Alternatively, our reception or nursing staff are happy to assist you with any general questions regarding your healthcare or take messages. Reception staff may ask you to briefly explain the reason for the call to determine if the Doctor should be interrupted during a consultation or an internal message sent. Where appropriate, the doctor will return your call as soon as possible.

Our reception staff is unable to give results over the phone, unless clearly unstructured by the referring Doctor. For all medical certificate, referral or script requests, patients must book an appointment with their doctor.

We are offering telephone consultations to all of our existing patients. The process of booking a telephone consultation is simple and operates in the same manner as making a standard face to face appointment. When making an appointment online, simply select the appointment type ‘phone consultation’ rather than the reason for the appointment. Alternatively, you can call reception on 07 56 767626 for bookings. Please note, your GP will do their best to contact you at the scheduled time however unexpected delays may occur.

Both referrals and imaging requests can be faxed to your email or healthcare provider post appointment. However, scripts issued during a telephone consult will need to be picked up either at reception OR their preferred Chemist. Please be advised that S8 medication repeats will not be feasible via telephone consults; a face-to-face will be required.

During a telephone consultation, your doctor will discuss any issues you might normally present to the clinic with. Please keep in mind there are limitations to online consultations such as the inability to perform a physical examination and therefore clinical judgement might be limited vis a vis face-to-face consults.​ Some consultations may still require a further follow up appointment in-person at a local GP and our staff will help facilitate this as required.

To help us in our efforts to minimise the risk of COVID-19, we encourage patients to use telephone consultations as an alternative to face-to-face consults where possible.

Patient may send through simple communications to their doctor or practice staff at info@familydoctorsnerang.com.au This email address is checked on a regular basis and any email received will be acknowledged in a reply and passed on to the addressee. All relevant emails will be stored in your patient record.

While we make every effort to keep your information secure, we want to remind our patients that electronic communications and information can potentially be compromised and forwarded, intercepted, printed and stored by persons outside of our practice. Patients communicating with Family Doctors Nerang through email do so at their own risk.

Where relevant, our staff only send patient information via email if it is securely encrypted (e.g. Zipped and password protected) according to industry and best practice standards, unless the patient has formally consented to their health information being send by unsecure email.

My Health Records is a secure online summary of your health information. Assisted Registration is available at this practice, ask your doctor or receptionist at your next visit. This practice can upload a health summary from your records to your My Health Record.

For further information visit www.myhealthrecord.gov.au

If you require after hours care or a home visit, please call Home Doctor Service on 13 SICK (13 7425). All consultation notes will be forwarded to the practice and added to your records.

The doctors at Family Doctors Nerang do not routinely conduct home visits but they can be arranged under special circumstances and if within 10km of the practice.

For non-urgent health advice, you can call 13 HEALTH (13 43 25 84)

For urgent medical attention, please call 000 or go to the emergency department at any of the of following hospitals:

• Gold Coast University Hospital (public)
• Robina Hospital (public)
• Varsity Day Lakes Hospital (private)
• Gold Coast Private Hospital (private)
• Pindara Hospital (private)
• John Flynn Hospital (private)

As of 1 February 2021, prescriptions now need to include information about the active ingredients in each medicine.

If a prescriber would also like to include the medicine brand name, it will appear after the active ingredient information.

This latest initiative supports other government activities that help encourage general awareness around active ingredients, such as the TGA initiative to make active ingredient names on medicine packaging easier to locate and read.

All these actions mean that it will be easier for you and your prescriber or pharmacist to talk about your options for different medicines that contain the same active ingredient. You may be able to choose a generic or biosimilar medicine, which may be cheaper than a brand name medicine.

The changes will also support greater consistency around how people see medicines information. This can lead to safer and more appropriate use of medicines by making it easier to:

• check if you are taking the same active ingredient in more than one prescription medicine – to prevent accidental double dosing
  
• check that you’re not taking an active ingredient you’re allergic to
  
• check that the active ingredient can be taken with medicines that have other active ingredients
  
• identify suitable alternatives to your usual medicines when travelling overseas.
  

Sometimes it is important to stay with the same brand of medicine. Health professionals can still prescribe a specific brand of medicine if they think it’s necessary.

Although you can often save money by choosing a generic medicine, some people should not change brands. There are also some situations where your doctor may prescribe a specific brand of medicine because they believe it is the one that best meets your clinical needs.

If your doctor decides it is necessary for you to stay with a specific brand, they will need to add the brand name and tick the ‘Brand substitution not permitted’ box on your prescription.

Family Doctors Nerang complies with RACGP guidelines for patient registration and identification.

Family Doctors Nerang does not discriminate in the registering of new patients on the grounds of race, gender, social class, age, religion, sexual orientation, appearance, disability or medical condition. Refusal to accept an application to register will not be made without reasonable grounds e.g. the patient is unable to provide the necessary proof for identification.

Correct patient identification is vital for patient safety, identity protection and the maintenance of patient confidentiality. Our patients must be correctly identified at each encounter with our practice team using three (3) approved patient identifiers.

Approved patient identifiers include:

• Patient name (family and given name)
• Date of birth
• Address
• Individual healthcare identifier
• Gender (as self-identified by the patient)

Receptionists may also request that the patient identifies:

• Contact number
• Emergency contact

All new patients MUST provide a form of photo ID, showing proof of address, and their Medicare Card.

For any exiting patients that have not attended the practice as a patient within the last 3 months, they may be required to provide a form of photo ID and Medicare card upon checking in for their appointment at the practice.

Reception reserves the right to perform periodic photo ID and Medicare card checked if uncertain of patient’s identity.

Please refer to our New Patient form

Suggestions & Complaints: If you have any concerns, complaints or suggestions about any aspect of our service we would appreciate hearing about them and will take them seriously. You may do so by:

Phone: 07 5676 7626

Writing:

• Email: reception@familydoctorsnerang.com.au
• Suggestion box at reception
• Filling out our Family Doctors Complaints and Compliments form

Matters which are unable to be resolved within the practice may be referred to:

Office of the Health Ombudsman

133646 (133OHO)

complaints@oho.qld.gov.au

PO BOX 13281 George Street Brisbane 4003

Patient Privacy and Management of Health Information:

We maintain confidentiality of all patient information in compliance with Privacy legislation. It is the policy of this practice to ensure your medical records and personal health information are secure at all times and are only available to authorised members of staff.

Please see our Family Doctors Nerang’s Patient Privacy and Management of Health Information for further information.