Family First Medical Centre « Family First Medical Centre

Services we provide include

At Family First Medical Centre , our concern is holistic healthcare for your entire family. We not only offer adjective solutions for your physical ailments, but we also offer options for your mental and emotional health issues. And you will be given tools and tips to start you on the road to a healthy lifestyle. Our acclaimed physicians and nurses are waiting and ready to help you live a happy and active life. We are taking new patients for both General Practice and Skin Cancer Checks.

Providing services in the areas of

General Practice
Skin Cancer Medicine
Cardiac ECG
Respiratory assessment
Nursing support
Pap Smears
Childhood immunisations
Newborn assessments development and health checks
Care Plans
Age 75 Health assessment’s
4 year old Health Assessments
Smoking cessation
Weight management
Flu Vaccines
Adult and Childhood Immunisations
Spirometry
Preventative Health
Travel Medicine
Diabetes Management
Pre Employment Medicals
Children’s health
Sexual Health
Home sleep study arrangement
On-site access to QML pathology collection
On-site access to Terry White Chemart Pharmacy

FFMC Waiting Room

We ARE currently accepting new GP and Skin patients and all services are bulk billed.. Please call for an appointment or visit our website to make an online booking via https://www.familyfirstmedicalcentre.com.au and hit the ‘BOOK AN APPOINTMENT’ tab.

DOWNLOAD PATIENT INFORMATION BROCHURE

OPENING HOURS

Monday to Friday: 8.00am-5.00pm

OUR DOCTORS

Dr Wayne Norval MBChB B.Sc FRACGP DipACSCM

Dr Nathan Dickenson MBBS FRACGP

Dr Emily Hall BSc MP

Dr Sarita Gurung MBBS

Dr Tapash Saha MBBS MRCP UK

Dr Daniel Gonzalaz MBBS

Dr Winnie Lee MPH MBBS

OUR PRACTICE MANAGER

Carrie Norval – Practice Manager

OUR ASSISTANT PRACTICE MANAGER

Alissa Mahoney

OUR PRACTICE NURSES

Jess Deakin RN
Jess

Alice Marshall RN

Kaitlyn Tidy RN

Hannah Hagan

OUR MEDICAL RECEPTIONISTS

Joanne Hermkens
Jo Hermkens

Carolien Raven

Maddie Ross

Jo Peek

Melinda Walters

CANCELLATIONS

If you are unable to attend your appointment please contact the practice at least four (4) hours before the appointed time, so that we may re-book the appointment and make another appointment for you.

TRANSLATION SERVICES AVAILABLE

National Relay Service (NRS) for patients who are deaf – phone 131 450 Translation and Interpreter Service (TIS) for patients who speak languages other than English – phone 133 677 Doctors Priority Line – 1300 131 450

RESULTS

It is the policy of the practice that results are to be given by your GP Doctor. Test results require an appointment with the Doctor. Please note that during Covid, Medicare are allowing us to provide Telephone consults for our existing patients. Medicare are currently allowing Telephone bookings with only your Doctor that you have seen in person within the last 12 months.

FEES

Family First Medical Centre is a Bulk Billing practice. We bulk bill patients who hold a current Medicare Card. Please note that some services do attract a fee for example Pre-Employment Medicals, Insurance Reports, Commercial Drivers Licence etc. Patients who do not hold a current Medicare Card will be privately billed $75.00 for a standard consultation. Our Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Jennifer McDonald’s consultations are bulk billed for patients with a current Medicare Card. Veterans Affairs patients are billed directly to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

REMINDER SYSTEM

Our practice is committed to preventive care. We offer a reminder system for pap smears, immunisations, blood test and other preventive health services appropriate to your care. If you do not wish to be part of this system, please advise your Doctor.

REFERRALS

Your Doctor will discuss your condition with you before referring to a specialist so please note this will require an appointment.

SCRIPTS

We ask where possible that you try to obtain your scripts during consultation. If you need repeat scripts, we ask that you make an appointment to see one of the Doctors, where the medical condition for which the scripts are being written can be checked.

There is a new development and option for patients to now receive their scripts electronically called “E-Prescriptions”. This has now been rolled out in Hervey Bay and most Pharmacies will now accept e-scripts (called ‘tokens’). Your GP will be able to issue your scripts to you via your token (which is your prescription) on a link send by SMS to your mobile phone. Emailing is another option should you not have a mobile phone available and/or scripts can be printed on plain paper if you wish. Additionally, traditional scripts will be offered on paper as per usual however e-scripts are very convenient as it allows you to keep your scripts on your phone and should you misplace or lose your scripts you will be able to contact us and arrange for your Dr to re-send your token to your phone which accurately tracks the amount of medication you have already had dispensed. This saves paper so is good for the environment as well and also means you are able to keep your scripts on a more confidential format.
During Covid, Medicare are allowing us to provide Telephone consults for our existing patients. Please note this will need to be with a Doctor that you have seen in the last 12 months to qualify for a telephone appointment. If you have a Telephone consult, your Doctor can fax your script to the pharmacy you request for collection. Please note our Doctors do not do ‘scripts owning to Pharmacists’ so you will require an appointment in person or by phone (if you qualify) to get your current GP to action your script.

AFTER HOURS

Family First Medical Centre provides after hours care for our patients on a roster system shared by our GPs. There is an after hours call out fee of $280.00 for the use of this service. Please call the practice on (07) 4124 2466 to obtain the on-call Doctor’s contact number. After hours services will be privately billed to the patient.

Additionally, House Call Doctor Hervey Bay offer a bulk billing call out service after hours and they can be called on 13 55 66.

For urgent medical attention please call 000

APPOINTMENTS

We run by an appointment system to minimise your waiting time – walk in appointments are not available as our Doctors run by a strict schedule. A routine appointment is 10-15 minutes WE DO NOT offer long appointments unless initiated by your GP. The Doctor of your choice (assuming this is your current regular treating GP) may be requested when making an appointment however often if they are fully booked you will be offered an appointment with a different doctor. Due to unforeseen circumstances, such as an emergency, delays can sometimes occur. Your patience would be appreciated if this should happen before your appointment. We do not tolerate bad behaviour or any abuse towards all staff, and if you show unacceptable behaviour, your file will become inactive and you will be asked to leave the practice. We ask patients to arrive on time for their appointment, so others are not inconvenienced.

PATIENT FEEDBACK

We take your concerns seriously. Please feel free to talk to your Doctor, Practice Manager or a staff member about any problems you have with our services.

We believe that problems are best dealt within the practice. However, if you feel there is a matter you wish to take up outside the practice, you can contact the Office of the Health Ombudsman on 133 646 or visit https://www.oho.qld.gov.au/

MANAGING YOUR PERSONAL HEALTH INFORMATION

Your medical record is a confidential document. Our practice policy is to maintain protection of your personal health information at all times and to ensure that this information is only available to authorised members of staff. For further information on your privacy please refer to our Patient Privacy Brochure. If you are changing Doctor Surgeries please contact your new medical centre for a ‘request for medical records transfer form’ and once this is filled out, we will action the request within 7 working days. Fees are $25.00 for a disk copy of medical records (assuming your new medical centre accepts XML/HTML format). For paper copies it’s $40.00 for records within the last 2 years and $60.00 for a complete file, please note printed copies are only available if your new medical centre is not disk compatible . We do enforce this in the interest of not being wasteful with printing unnecessarily, as some files can be 500 – 700 pages long and this is also problematic for your new treating practice as their staff will then need to scan this into your new patient file.

NON ATTENDANCE AT OUR MEDICAL CENTRE

As of 01/01/2020 we are now enforcing a strict policy for patients that do not attend their appointment. Our policy has had to be implemented due to the large number of appointments that patients have failed to attend and the overwhelming number of patients that we have turned away each day who would have been very grateful to have the missed appointment. For patients that miss 1 appointment we will give a warning. If you miss a subsequent appointment you will be reminded to be more mindful for missing future appointments. Once you miss your third appointment you will be given a final warning and if you then fail to attend any further appointments (4 missed appointments), your file will be made inactive. Occasionally, your Doctor will allow you to return to our Practice if you have been terminated for repeat non-attendance upon payment of a $75.00 Practice fee. This is Doctor dependent. For patients that fail to pay this fee and then miss any further appointments, your file will be made inactive and you will no longer be able to access services. We require at least 3 hours’ notice for any missed appointments and have an online booking system via this website where you can cancel/ reschedule or book your appointment 24 hours a day.