You must consider the terms of engagement below while making a choice to access child and adolescent psychiatric treatment privately. The terms are outlined below -
- We are a non-statutory provider and offer limited services over 3-4 hours per week. Admin support is largely by email only and limited to 2-3 hours per day, 5 days a week. When on leave Dr Joglekar may request support from a colleague where this is possible, however, where this is not available, you will have to request support from the GP. We do not cover emergency or urgent care even when you may be receiving our support - this is provided and must be accessed via local NHS Accident and Emergency services, if need be via 111 or 999.
- A referral for child psychiatry assessment may be made by self, GP, psychologists, schools or another health professional. We do not offer medico-legal work or expert witness assessments.
- Payment may include a booking fee deducted from final fees which are sessional, please refer to the fee structure here. We now require all self-pay patients to pre-pay in advance of their appointments. Prescriptions between appointments attract a fee, 7 working days notice is required. A further 5-7 days for dispatch via Royal Mail will need to be factored. We cannot take responsibility for lost posts but will provide another script on such rare occasions.
- Payments have to be made in 2 days from the date of invoice. The invoice note will detail the interest rate that may be payable in case of late payments. Full charges will incur for cancellations 72 hours before the appointment and no-shows. A £50.00 late payment charge will be applied to cover extra administrative costs incurred by us chasing payments.
- If you have medical insurance, they must provide you with a letter of pre-authorisation, without this claims cannot be made on your behalf.
- You are responsible for checking with your insurer if you need to pay an excess or have a co-pay arrangement and arrange to pay this to us directly.
- You should note that you will have to accept to pay any shortfall in the event the medical insurance does not pay the fees in full.
- Please check with your insurance company if they will limit how many out-patient appointments they would authorise and pay for in case the treatment requires regular follow-up.
- All payments, whether made by insurance companies or by self-paying patients are to be made electronically using BACS unless we agree to other arrangements. Non-payment of fees can lead to us suspending services, you should however be able to avail yourself of these from the NHS via your GP.
- Please refer here for information on the boundaries of confidentiality We will if required make safeguarding referrals, often with your consent and if the situation demands this, without your consent in line with prevailing statutory frameworks and our obligations thereof.
- For information on what conditions I would assess and treat, please refer here. I may based on referral information advise another service and decline work in certain situations to ensure the best interest and needs of the child and family were met adequately. If beyond the assessment or during the treatment if it so happens that the needs become complex, or risks to self and others escalate we would recommend you back to NHS care via your GP. We do not offer urgent or emergency care and are strictly an outpatient provision with planned appointments once every 4-8 weeks.
- Any initial enquiries are usually made by email, we do not offer this over the phone.
- The service on offer is strictly a planned outpatient provision. This is not different to similar services provided privately elsewhere or in NHS. In the event of an emergency, while I will endeavour to be available to guide you, you will have to access emergency and urgent care services via local / nearest accident and emergency.
- I may advise inpatient treatment on rare occasions, this can be arranged privately if you have medical insurance (they must source the bed) or via NHS.
- During the course of our engagement, if clinically it was appropriate or required or indeed you made a choice to access care from NHS - your GP would be required to do it with supporting evidence provided by us. Please refer to the principles for the interface between NHS and private medical treatment here.
- Correspondence - from receiving a referral to sharing any with you and the GP / referrer any reports, I would do this electronically. I use third-party servers/email and fax services (like most of us would) and would not be responsible for data loss in transit or accesses maliciously. Any information that I record and store however will be on an encrypted drive in keeping with data protection laws.
- Letters take 10 working days starting the first working day after an appointment or from the time we have all the information needed. When Dr Joglekar is on leave, letters will take longer. If you are open on my list I will provide reports at no extra cost following an appointment. Fees of £75.00 apply for updated letters and reports outside scheduled appointments. All letters are sent to patient/s as good practice. The Data Protection Laws are clear that as information within clinic letters relates to a given person, it is for that person (parents in case of minors) to determine who the information is shared with - typically we encourage and recommend you share this with GP, school and other professionals as appropriate. We are a paper-free service and do not send printed material by post. We do not email reports to GP surgeries unless they contact us with your express consent. The only exception when we may contact professionals from agencies directly is when there is a clear context of child protection or safeguarding concerns.
- Unless you wish to make private arrangements, I will expect the GP to arrange all medical investigations as needed - these may include blood tests, scans, and ECG / EEG. GPs will also be expected to provide repeat prescriptions on advice from an independent specialist. You would be responsible for making appointments with the GP on time to progress the above further if it applied to your situation.
- This note is not exhaustive and special circumstances will be dealt with as need be, in any event, you will be informed along the way if the engagement is to be outside the terms above. Please check and ask if you have any questions regarding the above at any stage of engagement.
