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.
Scripts, results and follow-up work well by phone or video. Anything that needs examining, listening to or measuring does not. How to tell which one you have.
Telehealth stopped being an emergency measure some years ago and settled into being a normal part of general practice. Used for the right things it saves a trip, a day off work, and sometimes a long drive. Used for the wrong things it wastes an appointment and you end up coming in anyway.
It is particularly useful if you are on a roster and awake at odd hours, if you are caring for someone and cannot easily leave, or if you are unwell with something infectious and would rather not sit in a waiting room.
The limitation is simple: a doctor cannot examine you down a phone line.
Chest pain, pressure or tightness happening now, or sudden severe breathlessness, is not a telehealth problem and not an appointment — call 000.
Medicare rebates for GP telehealth generally require that you have an existing relationship with the practice — in practice, that you have been seen face to face there within the previous twelve months. There are exemptions, and registering with MyMedicare changes how this applies for registered patients.
The practical upshot is that telehealth works best as part of ongoing care with a practice that knows you, rather than as a one-off with somewhere you have never attended. If you are unsure where you stand, ask reception when you book.
A telehealth appointment is a real appointment. Prepare for it the way you would for sitting in the chair.
Sometimes a phone appointment ends with the doctor saying you need to be seen. That is not a wasted appointment — it has established what the problem might be and how quickly it needs looking at, which means the face-to-face visit starts further along.
A phone appointment is a real appointment.
It is booked, it takes a time slot, and it deserves the same preparation as sitting in the waiting room.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 16 June 2026.
Tell reception what it is about when you book and they will tell you whether it can be done by phone. Booking the wrong one usually means doing it twice.
Bulk billed with a valid Medicare card · Mon–Fri 8:00am–5:00pm · Muswellbrook Fair, Rutherford Road.
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Your GP writes the referral and sends the relevant history so you are not starting from scratch. How long it lasts, what to ask about waiting times, and what to do while you wait.
For most specialties, seeing a specialist from Muswellbrook means travelling — commonly to Newcastle, sometimes further. That makes the referral itself worth understanding, because the difference between a well-organised referral and a rushed one can be several months and a wasted trip.
A referral is a clinical handover, not an administrative formality. A good one includes the reason you are being sent and the specific question being asked, your relevant history, your current medicines and allergies, your examination findings, and the results already done — bloods, imaging, an ECG — so they are not repeated.
That last part matters. Turning up without your results usually means having them done again, and waiting again.
This trips people up constantly. A standard referral from a GP to a specialist is valid for twelve months from your first appointment with that specialist — not twelve months from the date it was written.
So a referral written in March and first used in September runs until the following September. Where a condition needs continuing specialist care, your GP can write an indefinite referral for that specific condition. If your referral lapses, you need a new one for the Medicare rebate to apply, which is a good reason to check the dates before an appointment rather than at the desk.
Usually you have a choice, and it is worth an actual conversation rather than a default.
Public — through the outpatient clinic at a public hospital. No fee for the appointment. Waiting times vary considerably by specialty and by urgency, and you may see a member of the team rather than the same specialist each visit.
Private — usually a shorter wait, and you see the specialist you were referred to. There is a fee, and there is generally a gap between that fee and the Medicare rebate.
Urgent problems are triaged and move faster in both systems. Your GP will tell you if yours falls into that category.
A referral addressed to a named specialist can generally be redirected to another appropriate specialist without starting again — but ring us rather than assuming. It is a quick thing to sort out, and much better done before you have waited three months for an appointment that was never going to happen.
Waiting is not meant to be passive. Come back to us if:
Your GP can often escalate a referral, add information that changes how it is triaged, or start managing part of the problem while you wait.
The specialist writes back to your GP with their assessment and plan. Book a follow-up with us once you have been — partly to make sure the letter arrived, partly to translate it if it needs translating, and partly because the ongoing management usually comes back to general practice. If you are on a care plan, the specialist's advice folds into it.
A referral is not a form. It is a handover.
It carries your history, your results and the specific question your GP wants answered, so the appointment starts from something rather than nothing.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 9 June 2026.
If your symptoms change while you are waiting, or the wait turns out to be longer than expected, come back and tell us. A referral can often be redirected, and waiting quietly is rarely the best option.
Bulk billed with a valid Medicare card · Mon–Fri 8:00am–5:00pm · Muswellbrook Fair, Rutherford Road.
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A standard consult runs about ten minutes. Bringing your list, naming the main thing first, and knowing when to ask for a long appointment instead.
A standard consultation at Muswellbrook Doctors runs about ten minutes. That is not very long, and how it gets used makes a real difference to what you get out of it.
None of what follows is about being efficient for our benefit. It is about not walking out having failed to mention the thing you actually came for.
Every GP knows the door-handle moment: the appointment is finished, you are standing up, and the patient says “while I am here, I have had this chest pain”.
It happens because the important thing is often the frightening thing, and people warm up to it. Understandable — but it means the most serious problem gets the least time, and often has to be deferred to another appointment.
One exception to all of this: chest pain, pressure or tightness happening now is a 000 call, not an appointment. Do not wait for a booking, and do not drive yourself.
Otherwise, lead with it. “The main thing I am worried about is…” is a perfectly good opening sentence, and it changes how the whole appointment is spent.
Write down what you want to cover before you come, in order of importance, and hand it over at the start. It is not an imposition — it lets us see the shape of the visit immediately and say honestly which items fit today and which need another appointment.
Four problems will not fit into ten minutes. Two might. Knowing that at the start is far better than discovering it at the end.
You do not need medical language. Plain, specific description is more useful than technical terms.
Say what it is about when you book and reception will allocate the time. These generally need longer:
Take thirty seconds to check three things:
If you did not follow something, say so before you go. Nobody minds explaining something twice, and everybody minds a treatment that was never started because the instruction was not clear.
The single most common thing that goes wrong is the door-handle question.
The real reason for the visit gets mentioned with a hand on the door, when there is no time left to deal with 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 2 June 2026.
Tell reception roughly what it is about and they will book you the time you need. It is not nosiness — it is the difference between finishing the conversation and being asked to come back.
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 →