Before cancelling, consider if a Telehealth appointment is an option for you. Contact 07 3726 5595 or your practitioner to change an appointment to a video or phone session.
We ask that our clients give us at least 48 hours notice if they need to rebook or cancel an appointment.
Rationale For Our Policy:
– A good timeframe allows us to fill your appointment with another client on our waitlist. Most clients need time to discuss and make plans to be able to say yes to a last-minute appointment.
– Psychology services all over Australia are under pressure as the need for therapy is greater than the number of psychologists and therapy hours available. Due to this great need, session availability is highly valued. We want to avoid a wasted opportunity for someone else to receive help.
– Filling a late cancellation is time-consuming! It requires significant resources from our admin who can spend hours each week contacting clients on our waitlist and working on appointment schedules.
– North Brisbane Psychologists charges a Late Cancellation / Did Not Arrive fee (as recommended by the Australian governing body of Psychology – the APS – for private psychology practices).
– The Office of Fair Trading states that a business is within its rights to charge a cancellation or “no-show” fee for appointments, so long as this has been communicated to a new patient or customer before making an appointment. Our Cancellation Policy is not just on this website but in every ‘Appointment Confirmation’ email, ‘Appointment Reminder’ email you receive, and on the intake form filled out before the first session.
A late cancellation, a late reschedule, or failure to attend is a loss to three people:
1. The client who is delaying their therapy progress.
2. Another client who has been on the waiting list for an extended period of time.
3. The psychologist who set aside the time, spent time preparing for your session and then loses income.
Cancellation Fee Structure:
– Less than 48 hours* notice incurs a $115 fee (unless we can fill the spot with another client. Discuss this with your practitioner).
– Not arriving for your session (not attending) incurs a $115 fee.
* Allow an additional day for public holidays, as our admin work 7-days per week but not on public holidays.
Our policy further states:
– Our clients are responsible for managing their own bookings / appointment schedule. While we do our best to remind clients to book sessions regularly if needed, in the end cannot be held responsible for monitoring regular bookings on behalf of clients. The onus is on the client to make and keep up regular bookings according to their needs.
– Clients receive multiple reminders of upcoming sessions, including a confirmation email, a reminder email and a reminder SMS for each appointment. This is a courtesy and not a requirement or right.
– Clients are welcome to ask us to email their full appointment schedule at any time.
– Emergencies: We understand that the unexpected happens to us all. If a client is experiencing an emergency, please contact us immediately on (07) 3726 5595 to discuss it with us or leave a message and we will be able to make the relevant changes. It will be to the discretion of management if a fee will be charged.
– Please note that an emergency is considered to be extenuating circumstances outside of your control, which gave you no choice but to cancel. Should the client be aware of an illness / emergency more than 48 hrs before the session time and fail to cancel the appointment within the requested time-frame, fees will still be incurred.
– All outstanding fees need to be fully paid no less than 48 hours before the next appointment or the upcoming appointment may be cancelled.
– Should a client develop a pattern of cancellations (such as have 2 or more late cancellations), payment 48 hours before the next upcoming session may be requested.
– Should a client have 3 consecutive late cancellations or “Did Not Arrive” sessions, all future sessions may be cancelled and the clients file archived.
– Due to legislation, under no circumstances can we submit a claim or a cancellation fee to Medicare, WorkCover or your Private Health Fund.
This policy will be updated regularly and available on our website and other correspondence. We will consider any bookings made or kept after the changes / updates to act as an acceptance of the updated policy.
We appreciate and encourage timely communication. Should you have any questions, please reach out to us at our office via a phone call or email.