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Regular prescribed exercise is one of the more effective things available for type 2 diabetes, alongside your medicines.
All Medicare-eligible consultations are bulk billed for patients with a valid Medicare card. Some items, including privately purchased vaccines and consumables, attract a fee.
Some of the most useful work in a long-term condition is not done by a doctor. It is done by the person who shows you how to move without pain, or how to read your own blood sugars, or who finally tests the hearing everyone has been nagging you about. Three of those people work from our rooms at Muswellbrook Fair.
Allied health is the term for the health professionals who are not doctors or nurses but are university-qualified in their own field. Your GP diagnoses the condition and sets the medical plan. Allied health is where the week-to-week work of actually living with it gets done — and it is usually where people make the most progress.
You do not need to know which one you need before you ring. If you are not sure, book a standard GP appointment and ask. Working that out is part of what the appointment is for.
No. Most people referred have an ordinary long-term condition — type 2 diabetes, sore knees, blood pressure, a chest that plays up in winter. You do not need to be at crisis point to benefit.
No. Allied health works by agreement. If a program is not realistic for your life, say so and it gets changed — a plan you will actually follow beats a perfect one you will not.
Yes. Tell your GP and the referral goes to them instead.
These are not bulk billed. With a care plan Medicare pays part of the fee and you pay the gap. Reception quotes you before you book, so there are no surprises.
An Accredited Exercise Physiologist is university-qualified to prescribe exercise as a treatment — for a heart condition, for diabetes, for arthritis, for a back that has not been right in years. It is closer to rehabilitation than to personal training.
The first appointment is an assessment: what you can currently do, what hurts, what your condition allows, and — the part that matters most — what you would realistically keep doing. Then a program is built around that answer, supervised, and adjusted as you improve.
Nobody is going to hand you a printout of squats and wish you luck.
Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes, heart disease and cardiac recovery, COPD, osteoarthritis, persistent back or joint pain, osteoporosis, falls risk, and coming back from injury or surgery.
That is the usual starting point, and it is not held against you. Programs commonly begin with a few minutes of walking or a handful of movements done sitting down.
Tell them — that information changes the program. Pain is data, not failure.
With repeat measurements rather than assumption. You will be able to see what has changed.
Regular prescribed exercise is one of the more effective things available for type 2 diabetes, alongside your medicines.
Strengthening around a painful joint frequently does more over time than resting it.
Balance and strength work reduces falls risk, which matters more with every passing year.
A Credentialled Diabetes Educator is usually a nurse with additional qualifications in diabetes, and their appointments are long. That is the point of them. A GP appointment sets the medical plan; a diabetes educator has the time to go through how you carry it out — the monitoring, the food, the medicines, and the questions you did not think to ask at diagnosis.
It is especially worth doing when you are newly diagnosed, when your medicines change, when you are starting an injectable treatment, or when your numbers have drifted and nobody has quite explained why.
There is no lecture and no telling off. If the last six months have gone badly, that is exactly the appointment to book.
Reading your own blood glucose numbers, using a meter or a continuous glucose monitor, carbohydrates and portions in practical terms, when and how to take your medicines, injection technique where relevant, recognising and treating a hypo, sick day planning, foot and eye checks, and travel, shift work or fasting.
Often more so. Treatments change, and most people were given a great deal of information in one go at diagnosis and retained a fraction of it.
Yes, and it is a good idea — particularly whoever does the cooking.
The National Diabetes Services Scheme, which provides subsidised supplies such as test strips. Registration can be arranged here.
Along with any recent readings, so they can be looked at together rather than described.
The actual boxes, including anything from the chemist that is not on prescription.
Write them down beforehand. They reliably vanish the moment the appointment starts.
Amplifon is an independent hearing care provider whose clinicians consult from our rooms. They carry out hearing assessments, explain what the results mean, and where hearing aids are appropriate, fit and maintain them. Amplifon is a separate business and sets its own fees — the convenience is that the appointment is in the same building as your GP.
Hearing loss is easy to leave for years. It arrives slowly, and it is almost always the people around you who notice first. Having it measured tells you where you actually stand, which is more useful than everyone guessing.
You ask people to repeat themselves, conversation in a pub or a full room is hard work, others say the television is too loud, you have ringing in your ears, you have worked around machinery, mining or firearms noise, or a family member has raised it with you.
No. A test measures your hearing. What you do with that information is a separate conversation, and plenty of people leave with nothing but a result.
The Australian Government Hearing Services Program may apply to pensioner concession card holders and some veterans. Ask Amplifon when you book.
Reviews, adjustments and repairs can be done here too.
Allied health
Exercise physiology
Diabetes education
Hearing care with Amplifon
On site at Muswellbrook Fair
Care plans written here
Medicare-subsidised visits
Reports back to your GP
Allied health
Exercise physiology
Diabetes education
Hearing care with Amplifon
On site at Muswellbrook Fair
Care plans written here
Medicare-subsidised visits
Reports back to your GP
Allied health
Exercise physiology
Diabetes education
Hearing care with Amplifon
On site at Muswellbrook Fair
Care plans written here
Medicare-subsidised visits
Reports back to your GP
Not to attend privately. A GP referral under a care plan is what makes exercise physiology and diabetes education Medicare-subsidised. For hearing you can book directly with Amplifon.
No. Medicare subsidises part of the fee when you hold a care plan, and there is usually a gap. Reception will tell you the amount before you book.
A written plan your GP makes for a long-term condition. It sets out what is being managed and who is helping, and it unlocks a set number of Medicare-subsidised allied health visits each calendar year.
A set number per calendar year under a GP Chronic Condition Management Plan. Medicare sets the figure and we will confirm it at your appointment.
Conditions that have lasted, or are likely to last, at least six months — diabetes, heart and lung disease, arthritis and others.
Yes, with a valid Medicare card.
Days vary by term. Phone reception on (02) 6530 7404 for the current schedule.
Tell us. It is a common barrier, there are sometimes concession rates, and it is far better discussed than left.
General information only This page is general health information for anyone who finds it useful. It is not advice about your own situation and it does not replace a consultation with a doctor who knows you. If you are worried about a symptom, book an appointment or call (02) 6530 7404. In an emergency, call 000.
Ring reception, say which service you are after — or that you are not sure — and we will point you the right way. Mon–Fri 8:00am–5:00pm · Muswellbrook Fair, Rutherford Road.
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