Your Appointment

Appointments with our ENT Specialists

PATIENT REGISTRATION

Please complete your registration form prior to your appointment

either online or download the form below and email it to reception@entnorth.com.au

CHILDREN AS PATIENTS:

Please call our rooms on 1300 357 338, and our staff will usually be able to book your appointment with you. We still require your child’s referral by the time of their appointment and would recommend that you email this to us on reception@entnorth.com.au at the same time you call us.

For children with ear or hearing symptoms, we will need them to undergo a hearing test (‘audiogram’) prior to seeing our surgeon. A hearing test can be done with our in-house audiologist, often on the same day as your surgeon’s appointment. We are also happy to accept hearing tests from community audiologists if they have done a full hearing test (air and bone conduction) and pressure testing (‘tympanometry’).

ADULT PATIENTS:

All adult patient referrals undergo triage and must be received before we can advise an appointment pathway.  Please ensure that we have your contact details, and that any relevant investigations are sent with your referral. You can email these to reception@entnorth.com.au.

Once your referral has undergone triage, you will be contacted by our staff to either arrange your appointment, to have further testing or to discuss another pathway for your care.

• Having further testing if required

Seeing a surgeon often involves a long wait time for an appointment and can be very expensive. In order to give you the highest chance that you will be seen by the most suitable surgeon at ENT North, and to reduce the need for repeated appointments as we get the results of tests that tell us what care you need, we will arrange for you to have either medical imaging (‘x-rays’), blood tests, hearing tests (‘audiograms’) or other tests prior to your appointment with one of our surgeons.

These will be sent to you by our staff when we get your referral and a surgeon has had a chance to see what tests are needed. You are free to get these done at any location in the community that you choose, if our preferred providers are not the usual place where you get your tests.

The purpose behind having you do these investigations before your appointment is to ensure that when you do come to see your surgeon, that we have all the necessary information available on the day, so we can do a thorough assessment and recommend appropriate treatment at the earliest possible point – hopefully a ‘One-Stop-Shop’. We find that most of our patients have their ENT Surgery care earlier, with fewer appointments – and therefore lower costs – if they do have these tests done first.

In some cases, we find that having got that information our surgeons realise that the condition that you were referred to us for would be better treated by another ENT service (Some ENT conditions need highly specialised care provided by only a handful of surgeons in the state) or may respond more effectively to alternate, non-ENT, care. Our staff will contact you accordingly and we will contact your GP to explain where they should refer you to for more effective care. The purpose behind this is to avoid the delay, expense and inevitable frustration of an unnecessary appointment with one of our surgeons.

When our surgeons recommend further tests before your appointment, it is necessary for you to have these done prior to us being able to book you in. You are, of course, very welcome to seek an ENT opinion from another service with different protocols, and we would wish you all the best if you did choose to do that. If you’ve already had the tests organised at a third-party location without our knowledge, please organise for those results to come through to us for our surgeons to review.

• Ear Symptoms

If you have been referred to see us for any ear problem (except for certain urgent conditions), we will need you to undergo a hearing test (‘audiogram’) prior to seeing our surgeon. This includes referrals for problems such as you feeling you have hearing loss, but also tinnitus/ringing in your ears, pressure/fullness/blockage of your ears, eustachian tube dysfunction or ear pain.

Having this done prior to seeing our surgeon will mean we can usually confirm your diagnosis and start treatment after one appointment. If you choose not to have a hearing test when recommended we often will not be able to offer you an appointment, or we may need you to return for another appointment after having one done before we can confirm your treatment plan. This will both delay having your problem treated and cost you more money.

A hearing test can be done with our in-house audiologist. We are also happy to accept hearing tests from community audiologists if they have done a full hearing test (air and bone conduction) and pressure testing (‘tympanometry’). You must send us a copy of the hearing test or confirm with our staff that it was attached to your GP referral.

• Tinnitus

To assess your problem fully, we must have a formal diagnostic audiogram (not a screening hearing test) done prior to triaging your referral . We are happy to arrange this with our in-house audiology service at ENT North. If you have had this done externally, the result must be attached to your GP referral, or send this to reception@entnorth.com.au.We may also arrange for you undertake additional investigations or imaging prior to triaging your referral and are not able to advise you about what care is appropriate for your tinnitus until we have this information.

• Nose Symptoms

If you have been referred for nose related symptoms and have had allergy tests, please bring a copy of the results of these tests with you to your appointment or call our staff on 1300 357 338 to confirm that we have those results attached to your GP referral.

If you have had a CT Sinuses, please go to the imaging place you had your imaging done at and ask them to give you (not your doctor or any other third party) a CD containing your images. Please bring this to your medical appointment AND any subsequent surgery. If you leave them behind at your doctor’s clinic or hospital, please go back to the imaging centre and get another copy, as they will usually be destroyed. Please also confirm that a copy of the results has been sent to us with your referral.

• Redirecting your care:

We commonly receive referrals for conditions that ENT Surgery either doesn’t treat, or where another specialty would treat your condition more effectively. In this case, we will write to you and your referring doctor redirecting you to a more appropriate service. This is because we want you to have the best possible outcome, and to reduce the cost and delay you may otherwise incur in getting to the most suitable care.

• WorkCover, TAC or medicolegal related symptoms:

Please note that our surgeons are not credentialed to provide reports or assessments if you believe your ENT symptoms are related to an accident or work-related incident or exposure. This includes any ear symptoms that are related to unusual noise exposure where you anticipate seeking compensation (e.g. blast injuries in the community, excessively loud music performances etc). Please contact the relevant authority to get the most up-to-date contact details for an appropriately credentialed surgeon.

PUNCTUALITY:

At ENT North, we make every attempt to run on time, and schedule our patient appointments to achieve this.  Your being ready to start your appointment at your scheduled time is a vital part of achieving this. When someone is even a few minutes late to start their consultation, all the patients that follow them will all have their appointment delayed. We don’t think it is reasonable or respectful to expect you to be seen late if the situation was reversed.

We understand that delays can happen for all sorts of reasons. If you anticipate being late to your appointment, please call us and check with the staff if it would be possible to still see you, or if it would be necessary to reschedule your appointment. If you arrive late (even by a minute or two), we will usually need to rebook you or your child into the next available appointment slot.

If your condition requires more urgent care, then we will make every attempt to see you at lunchtime or at the end of the day. As our surgeons often have other clinical commitments in the middle or end of the day, this may not always be possible, and our staff will book an appointment for you as soon as is clinically necessary.

Your time is valuable, thank you for helping us in ensuring we do not waste it.

ANY CONCERNS ABOUT YOUR CARE

We always try to provide exceptional care for our patients. Sometimes, our patients feel we don’t reach this standard. We are very keen to work with you if you haven’t received the care that you feel you require.

Please feel free to call us on 1300 357 338 or email reception@entnorth.com.au so we can arrange an appointment with our Practice Manager to discuss your concerns.