All Medicare-eligible consultations are bulk billed for patients with a valid Medicare card. Some items, including privately purchased vaccines and consumables, attract a fee.
Not a questionnaire and a script. A structured assessment across more than one appointment, looking at how long the pattern has been there, how it shows up at work and at home, and what else could explain it.
Most adults who ask us about ADHD have been thinking about it for a long time before they say it out loud. Often something has prompted it — a child has been assessed and the description sounded familiar, or a job has changed and the strategies that used to hold everything together have stopped working.
What people are usually least sure about is what actually happens in the appointment. There is a common assumption that an assessment is a form you fill in, followed by a prescription. It is not. This is what to expect at Muswellbrook Doctors.
ADHD is diagnosed by building a picture over time, not by a single test. There is no blood test and no scan for it. The assessment is a structured clinical process, and it needs more than the ten minutes a standard consultation runs to.
Expect a long first appointment, and at least one follow-up. Between them, you may be asked to complete rating scales, gather documents, or ask a family member to fill something in. How many appointments it takes depends on how clear the picture is and what else needs ruling out.
Book a long appointment and say what it is about when you book, so reception can allow the time properly.
The diagnostic criteria for ADHD require that the difficulties have been present since childhood, that they show up in more than one setting, and that they genuinely interfere with how you function. So the questions range wider than you might expect.
The more of this you can gather beforehand, the more the appointment can be spent on the conversation rather than on reconstruction.
An assessment is a process of finding out, so it is worth being clear that it can end in several places. It might conclude that the criteria for ADHD are met. It might conclude that they are not, and identify something else that explains the difficulty. It might identify ADHD alongside something else that also needs attention. Or it might mean referral on to a psychiatrist or paediatrician, which is still a normal and appropriate outcome.
Where treatment is appropriate, it is rarely medication on its own. Sleep, structure, workplace adjustments, and support for anxiety or low mood all do real work. Medication is one option among several, and what a GP is able to prescribe in New South Wales depends on rules that have been changing — we have written about who can prescribe what in NSW separately.
Standard GP consultations at Muswellbrook Doctors are bulk billed for everyone with a valid Medicare card. ADHD assessment is an exception. It is a longer, more involved process than a standard consultation, and it is privately billed — you pay a fee, and a Medicare rebate may apply to part of it.
Ask reception for the fee when you book, and ask what the assessment includes, so you know before you start rather than afterwards. You can also read our patient information and fees page.
If you are wondering whether it is worth pursuing, a standard appointment is a reasonable place to begin. You can describe what has been happening, ask whether an assessment makes sense, and find out what it would involve before committing to it.
A diagnosis is a description of a pattern, not a label handed out on the day.
That is why the assessment takes time, asks about your childhood, and looks for the other things that can produce the same difficulties.General information only. This article is general health information for anyone who finds it useful. It is not advice about your own situation and it does not replace a consultation with a doctor who knows you. If you are worried about a symptom, book an appointment or call us on (02) 6530 7404. Last reviewed 18 August 2026.
Dr Zahraa Hussein offers ADHD assessment at Muswellbrook Doctors. Assessment appointments are privately billed and are not bulk billed — reception will quote you the fee when you book, so you know the cost before you start.
Bulk billed with a valid Medicare card · Mon–Fri 8:00am–5:00pm · Muswellbrook Fair, Rutherford Road.
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School reports, teacher observations and the everyday detail matter more than you would think. What we ask for, why we ask for it, and what the first appointment is and is not.
Parents usually arrive at this appointment having already had a lot of conversations — with a teacher, with grandparents, with other parents at sport. Often someone has said “it is probably just their age” and someone else has said “you should get that looked at”, and you are left trying to work out which one is right.
The first appointment is where that gets sorted out properly. Here is how to make it count.
It is a conversation, a history, and a plan for what happens next. It is not a diagnosis on the day, and it is not a prescription on the day. A diagnosis or a prescription arrived at after one short appointment is moving faster than the evidence allows.
Book a long appointment and say what it is about, so there is enough time. Bring your child if the appointment is about them — but it is also reasonable to have a first conversation on your own if you would rather talk freely.
The diagnostic criteria require that the difficulties show up in more than one setting. A child who struggles only at home, or only in one class with one teacher, is telling us something different from a child who struggles everywhere.
That makes the school a genuinely important source. Useful things to gather:
Several ordinary things can look very much like inattention in a child, and they are worth excluding before going further.
None of this is a delaying tactic. Some of these are treatable in a way that changes everything, and all of them change what the right plan looks like.
Depending on what the first appointment turns up, the next step might be gathering more information from school, arranging hearing or vision testing, addressing sleep, a further appointment to complete the assessment, or referral to a paediatrician. Referral is a normal outcome, not a failure of the process, and your GP will send the relevant history so you are not starting from scratch — we have written about how referrals work when the specialist is out of town.
Standard GP consultations at Muswellbrook Doctors are bulk billed for everyone with a valid Medicare card. ADHD assessment is privately billed and is not bulk billed. Ask reception for the fee when you book so you know before you begin.
A child who can concentrate for hours on something they love can still have ADHD.
Being able to focus intensely on the interesting thing is part of the pattern, not evidence against it.General information only. This article is general health information for anyone who finds it useful. It is not advice about your own situation and it does not replace a consultation with a doctor who knows you. If you are worried about a symptom, book an appointment or call us on (02) 6530 7404. Last reviewed 12 August 2026.
Tell reception the appointment is about your child's concentration or behaviour so they can allow enough time. ADHD assessment is privately billed and not bulk billed — ask for the fee when you book.
Bulk billed with a valid Medicare card · Mon–Fri 8:00am–5:00pm · Muswellbrook Fair, Rutherford Road.
Prefer to meet us first? Meet the doctors →
The rules changed recently and are still changing. Who can start a treatment, who can continue one, and what it means for people living in a regional town rather than Sydney.
If you have ADHD in New South Wales, or you care for someone who does, the prescribing rules have probably affected you more than any clinical decision. For years the arrangement meant a long wait and a significant fee to see a psychiatrist or paediatrician, and then a return trip whenever a prescription needed renewing — which, from Muswellbrook, means a drive.
That has been changing in stages. Here is where things stand, in plain terms.
From 1 September 2025, GPs in New South Wales who have completed the required training and been approved have been able to continue prescribing ADHD medication that was originally started by a specialist. NSW Health reported that more than 800 GPs had been trained as continuation prescribers, and that in the first months over 5,000 patients had been prescribed through the new arrangement.
This applies to people with an established diagnosis who are stable on their treatment. In practice it means that if that describes you, the routine work of reviewing and renewing can potentially happen at your regular practice, rather than requiring an appointment with the specialist who started it.
The second stage goes further. From March 2026, GPs have been able to undertake training that allows them to assess, diagnose and start ADHD treatment in some situations without an initial specialist assessment.
Two things are worth understanding about this stage. First, it is training-based and the places are limited — this is not a blanket authority that every GP in the state now holds. Second, the training takes several months. The first cohort of around 300 GPs began it from March 2026 and the earliest completions are expected from late 2026, so the number of GPs able to diagnose is only beginning to grow. Do not assume any given practice holds it yet — ask.
NSW Health said it would prioritise GPs working in areas of greatest need, specifically including regional, rural and remote areas. For a town like Muswellbrook, that prioritisation is the point of the reform.
The honest answer is that it depends on the practice and the individual doctor, which is unsatisfying but accurate. The Minister's own advice when the second stage was announced was to speak to your regular GP and find out whether they will be providing this.
So that is the question worth asking, and it is a reasonable one to put to reception when you book:
At Muswellbrook Doctors, ADHD assessment is offered by Dr Zahraa Hussein. The scope of what can be prescribed here depends on current approvals under the NSW arrangements — ask reception when you book and you will get a straight answer rather than a guess.
It is worth saying clearly that none of this removes specialists from the picture. NSW Health was explicit that GPs continue to refer and escalate care where that is appropriate. Complex presentations, people who are not responding as expected, and situations where there is a lot going on alongside the ADHD are all reasons a specialist opinion remains the right call.
What has changed is that a specialist referral is no longer the only door in for everybody.
Rules in this area have moved several times in two years and may well move again. If you read this some time after the review date at the foot of the page, check the current position with us rather than assuming it still holds.
The change most people notice first is not the diagnosis. It is not having to drive to Newcastle to renew a script.
Continuation prescribing has been the quiet, practical half of the reform.General information only. This article is general health information for anyone who finds it useful. It is not advice about your own situation and it does not replace a consultation with a doctor who knows you. If you are worried about a symptom, book an appointment or call us on (02) 6530 7404. Last reviewed 5 August 2026.
If you already have an ADHD diagnosis and are travelling to Sydney or Newcastle just to renew a script, it is worth asking whether that is still necessary. Book an appointment and bring your current prescription and specialist letters.
Bulk billed with a valid Medicare card · Mon–Fri 8:00am–5:00pm · Muswellbrook Fair, Rutherford Road.
Prefer to meet us first? Meet the doctors →