Do I need a referral, and how many sessions will I need?

how many sessions do i need?

The number of sessions required to help you solve your problem varies and is dependant on the simplicity or complexity of your problem. We employ our “3 visit rule” so that we are clear on whether we are making meaningful improvement by the 3rd session.

At the 3rd session we can colaborately set meaningful goals and set up a treatment plan that will achieve these goals in a given timeframe. Alternatively, if you are happy with your progress, you can opt to stop your treatment at anytime. If we are achieving no meaningful change by the third session, your case will need to be escalated either to a senior team member or to a different type of health professional for an opinion.

There are various ways someone can access our services:

Private: Whether your session is rebated with your private health cover or you are full fee paying, you can access our services without a referral

Medicare EPC: In order to access our services and claim under medicare, you will need a referral from your GP for an EPC indicating how many sessions and what type of service. We cannot help you claim under Medicare without a referral. Speak to your GP to see if you are eligable for this type of referral as it is for people with chronic pain (pain for more than 3 months)

Workers Compensation Claims: The first 8 sessions with a practitioner are pre-approved, and you will need a GP referral along the approval of the plan from your cae manager in order to have continued access.

CTP Claims: The first session is pre-approved and all following sessions require a GP referral and an approved treatment plan through your case manager.

DVA: Your GP needs to refer you to access our services and claim under DVA.

NDIS: Self funded patients can access our services.but those that are SIRA managed or managed by a case manager require a referral and dedicated funding for the specific type of service.

Telehealth: For existing patients, we do offer telehealth appointments if required and there is no in-person option.

If you have any further questions or you are not sure which category you fit into, please call us on (02) 98995512 or email us admin@balancehp.com.au

How long will it take to feel better, and what will the process involve?

We are highly conscious of the simple fact that patients would prefer to do other things with their time and money, than continuously come back to the Physio/Chiro for more treatment and rehab.

In short, our goal is to help you solve the problem so we can get you out of the clinic, asap.

Of course, there probably won’t be any suprise when we say, that recovery times depend on the problem and your circumstances… Of course “it depends”… But that’s frankly a weak and underwhelming answer - we can do better.

The best way to answer the question is to be clear and up front about our process.

The initial consultation: 45mins

• Learn about what you’re experiencing and your expectations of us

• Find out what is wrong and why it’s happening

• Provide treatment and see if we can make an immediate change aiming for 20-30%

• In more complex cases, we may need to spend more time figuring out what is happening and why it might be happening which will eat into some of the treatment time.

Our “3 visit rule”:

• This includes the initial consult (45mins) and 2 standard consults (30mins each)

• The purpose of the first 3 visits is simple

  • provide enough meaningful and significant change to verify that what we’re doing is working

  • provide treatment and rehab that is relevent and effective

  • have clear advice on what lifestyle or exercise based activities you need to do more of and less of.

• We have a “3 visit rule” because we want to bring urgency to providing you the results you’re looking for

• You and your practitioner should know by the 3rd session whether you’re on the right track or not and from there you have 3 choices:

  • Stop treatment because you’re happy with the improvement

  • Make a treatment plan and assign goal based milestones that you and your practitioner can work towards over the next 4-6 weeks

  • Have a referral to see someone else either at Balance or externally in order to get the progress you are looking for with your problem.

So, ultimately - it will take 3 visits for you to experience improvement and if not, you might be in the wrong place.

The rest of the plan simply depends on the simplicity or complexity of your problem.