Appointment cancellation and non-attendance

The administration team require adequate notice of two full business days prior to your appointment if you are unable to attend your appointment, so that they can offer it to another family. 

If you cancel an appointment at late notice, or do not attend a booked appointment, the receptionists are unable to re-fill the doctor's appointment time-slot.

Appointment times are lost that could have been used to help other children and their families, and the doctor loses income for that appointment.

All appointments that are cancelled with less than 48 hours or two full business days notice or are not attended will be charged a late cancellation fee of the FULL APPOINTMENT FEE.

For one hour appointments we require 7 business days notice for cancellation, or a $200 fee will be charged to the parent. This fee is not eligible for a rebate from Medicare. IF the cancellation occurs less than 2 full business days prior to the appointment, the full appointment fee will be charged.

Cancellation/ non-attendance fees must be paid before any further services or appointment bookings are provided by a doctor at Coastal Developmental Paediatrics.

NOTE: If you are on multiple Paediatric service waitlists and are offered an appointment elsewhere, make sure to notify and cancel your appointments and referral with Coastal Developmental Paediatrics admin team.

NEW patient appointment bookings - the admin team spend considerable time setting up these appointments, which require multiple appointments to be booked in for Developmental/ Behavioural referrals, hence if the child is booked in for appointments (the parent has accepted and confirmed) then the parent requests for their scheduled appointments to be moved more than once prior to engaging with the Paediatrician, the referral will be declined and returned to the child's GP.

In extenuating circumstances, the decision to waive the cancellation fee is made by the relevant doctor. It cannot be made by the administrative staff.

The administration team try to assist families with reminders of appointments via SMS or a follow up phone call. However we ask that you take a clear note of your appointment date at the time of making the appointment as it is your responsibility to manage this and to contact reception, with 7 business days of one hour appointments, and two full business days' notice for all others, to make changes if you are no longer able to attend your scheduled date and time.

Recurrent Cancellations:

The provision of high quality care to children, young people and families requires a commitment on the part of the family to the therapeutic process, including attending appointments at the time intervals recommended by their doctor.

The doctors recognise that sometimes circumstances may change at short notice and that this may prevent the family’s capacity to attend a scheduled appointment, however a pattern of recurrent cancellations can be detrimental to the child and young person’s clinical care and the therapeutic process as a whole. It can also prevent other families from accessing this valuable service.

For these reasons, if a family demonstrates a pattern (e.g. a number of episodes) of late cancellations, late rebookings or missed appointments or late fee payments for telehealth services, their doctor may return their care to their GP and they will no longer be offered appointments through Coastal Developmental Paediatrics.

Policy updated 10/02/2025