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
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
OUR PRACTICE MANAGER
Carrie Norval – Practice Manager
OUR ASSISTANT PRACTICE MANAGER
Alissa Mahoney
OUR PRACTICE NURSES
Jess Deakin RN
Alice Marshall RN
Kaitlyn Tidy RN
Hannah Hagan
OUR MEDICAL RECEPTIONISTS
Joanne 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
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.
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.