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.
Wondering whether ADHD explains what you have been dealing with? Here is what ADHD actually is, the signs people most often notice, and what an assessment with us involves.
We are a bulk billing practice — standard GP consultations are bulk billed with a valid Medicare card. ADHD assessment is a privately billed service, and the fee is set out below.ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It is a neurodevelopmental condition, which means it is part of how a brain has developed rather than something caused by upbringing, screens, sugar or a lack of effort. It begins in childhood, even when it is not recognised until much later.
Yes. It is a recognised neurodevelopmental condition with defined diagnostic criteria, and it is one of the most studied conditions in child and adult mental health. It is not a label for laziness, poor discipline or bad parenting.
No — the criteria require that the difficulties were present in childhood. What often happens is that they were compensated for successfully for years, and only became a problem when the external structure fell away: leaving school, a new job, a promotion, a baby, or a change in shift work.
It is diagnosed more often in boys, but that gap is thought to reflect how it presents rather than how common it is. Girls and women more often have the inattentive presentation, which is quieter and easier to overlook, so many are not identified until adulthood.
The quiet end. Losing track, drifting off, forgetting, disorganisation. No disruption at all — which is exactly why it gets missed, particularly in girls and women.
Restlessness, interrupting, acting before thinking. More visible, so more often picked up in childhood. In adults it is often internal rather than obvious.
Features of both, and the most common pattern. The balance between them often shifts with age — hyperactivity tends to soften, inattention tends to stay.
It is difficulty directing it. The same person can lose an afternoon to something absorbing and be unable to start a ten-minute task that does not interest them.
Even when nobody names it until much later. Many adults were simply managing it — until a new job, a baby or a change in shift work removed the structure that was holding it together.
Australian estimates suggest around one in twenty people. Plenty of adults start wondering only after a child, sibling or partner is assessed.
ADHD is neurodevelopmental. It is not created by discipline, routine or anything a parent did or did not do.
Both get blamed. Neither causes ADHD, though poor sleep — whatever the reason for it — makes every symptom harder to live with.
Most people with ADHD are working considerably harder than those around them to produce the same result. That effort is invisible, and it is exhausting.
ADHD is diagnosed against defined criteria by looking at the whole picture over time — not from a list like this one.
Most adults who come to us have not suddenly developed a problem. They have been managing something for a long time, often with a lot of effort, and something has finally tipped it over — a job that got harder to hold together, or a child being assessed and the questionnaire sounding uncomfortably familiar.
Starting tasks is harder than doing them. Losing the thread mid-conversation or mid-page. Reading something three times without it going in. Losing hours to something interesting while the urgent thing sits untouched.
Underestimating how long things take. Deadlines that arrive suddenly. Paperwork, bills and renewals that pile up. A house or car that swings between chaos and a burst of total reorganisation.
Walking into rooms and forgetting why. Losing phones, keys and wallets often. Intending to reply to a message and realising a fortnight has passed.
The task is not difficult, but beginning it feels impossible — until a deadline makes it urgent, and then it gets done in one burst.
Words go in and straight back out. It happens most with things you have to read rather than want to read.
Deep, effortless focus on something absorbing, while the urgent thing sits untouched. This is part of the pattern, not evidence against it.
You realise you have missed the last thirty seconds, and have to reconstruct it from context.
Everything takes longer than you estimated. Deadlines seem far away and then arrive all at once.
Bills, renewals, forms and appointments accumulate — not because you do not care, but because opening them is the hard part.
Long stretches of mess punctuated by a burst of reorganising everything at once, usually at an odd hour.
Keys, phone, wallet, glasses. Often several times a day, and often somewhere you have already looked.
The thought was there on the way, and gone at the door.
You read the message, compose the answer in your head, and a fortnight passes.
Vivid recall for detail nobody else retained, alongside no memory of an appointment made yesterday.
Difficulty doing nothing. Sitting through a film or a long meal takes real effort.
Interrupting, finishing sentences, or saying the thing and hearing it at the same time as everyone else.
Purchases, plans and commitments made quickly. The appeal is real in the moment and gone by morning.
Out of proportion for a few minutes, then genuinely over — while everyone else is still upset.
A small correction can flatten the day. Many people describe this as the most wearing part.
Managing it is possible, but it costs more effort than it seems to cost other people — and that is exhausting.
No single item here means much on its own — everyone loses their keys. What matters is the pattern: how far back it goes, whether it shows up in more than one part of your life, and whether it is genuinely costing you something.
In children the difficulties usually show up at school before anyone puts a name to them — not because school causes it, but because school asks for sustained attention, sitting still and following multi-step instructions all day.
Losing track of instructions. Work started but not finished. Careless errors in work the child clearly understands. Fidgeting, calling out, leaving their seat. Reports that repeatedly say “capable, but needs to apply themselves”.
Homework that should take twenty minutes taking two hours and ending in tears. Needing to be asked many times. Getting distracted halfway through getting dressed. Big emotional reactions that pass quickly.
Interrupting games or changing the rules. Difficulty waiting for a turn. Falling out with friends easily, then not being sure why.
A three-step instruction arrives and only the first step survives. Not defiance — the rest did not stay.
Books full of half-completed tasks, often on topics the child clearly understands.
Mistakes in things they can plainly do, usually because attention moved before the task ended.
The same comment on reports year after year is worth taking seriously rather than accepting.
Fidgeting, calling out, wandering. More visible in boys, which is part of why girls are diagnosed later.
Twenty minutes of work stretching into two hours and ending in tears, several nights a week.
Getting dressed stalls halfway. It reads as ignoring you, and it usually is not.
The same sequence every day, and every day it needs the same amount of supervision.
Intense frustration or upset that resolves faster than anyone expects.
Interrupting games, changing rules, or dominating play without meaning to.
Easy to make, harder to keep, and the child often cannot explain what went wrong.
Reads the room a beat late, then over-corrects.
No disruption at all — just somewhere else. Inattentive presentation is the one that gets overlooked, particularly in girls.
Effort that goes unseen often gets relabelled. Many adults were called one of these three as children.
A child who masks all day may release it the moment they are somewhere safe.
The criteria require difficulties in more than one setting — which is why we ask for school reports and a teacher's observations alongside what you see at home.
There is no blood test and no scan for ADHD. It is diagnosed by building a picture over time: how the difficulties show up now, how far back they go, whether they appear in more than one setting, and what else could explain them.
A long conversation. How things are now, what school was like, what you have already tried, and what it is costing you. There is no test to pass and nothing to prepare beyond the things listed above.
Sleep and sleep apnoea, thyroid, iron, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, alcohol and other drugs, and the effects of shift work. Several of these are common around here and several are treatable in their own right.
No, and that is the point of assessing rather than assuming. An assessment can conclude that the criteria are met, that they are not, that something else explains the difficulties, or that a specialist opinion is needed. All four are real results.
Assessments here are carried out by your own GP, in the practice you already attend, with your history already on file. That continuity is the difference between an assessment that ends with a letter and one that ends with a plan.
Because it is a substantially longer process than a standard consultation — multiple long appointments, questionnaires, information gathered from elsewhere and correspondence — and the Medicare rebates for general practice do not cover that time.
A rebate may apply to part of it depending on what is billed. Reception will explain what applies before you begin.
Say so. There may be a public referral pathway that suits your situation better, and it is a reasonable thing to ask about without embarrassment.
Standard GP consultations here are bulk billed for everyone with a valid Medicare card. ADHD assessment is the one exception — it takes several long appointments, so it is privately billed. We would rather you knew that now than found out later.
No obligation, and no need to book first. Reception can talk you through the fee, what is included and how the appointments usually run.
ADHD assessment for adults
ADHD assessment for children
Inattentive, hyperactive and combined presentations
Other causes considered first
A structured, multi-appointment process
With Dr Zahraa Hussein
Privately billed — fee quoted before you begin
Referral where a specialist opinion is needed
ADHD assessment for adults
ADHD assessment for children
Inattentive, hyperactive and combined presentations
Other causes considered first
A structured, multi-appointment process
With Dr Zahraa Hussein
Privately billed — fee quoted before you begin
Referral where a specialist opinion is needed
ADHD assessment for adults
ADHD assessment for children
Inattentive, hyperactive and combined presentations
Other causes considered first
A structured, multi-appointment process
With Dr Zahraa Hussein
Privately billed — fee quoted before you begin
Referral where a specialist opinion is needed
If the pattern has been there since childhood, shows up in more than one part of your life, and is genuinely costing you something — at work, at school, with money, or in relationships — it is worth asking. A standard appointment is a fine place to start that conversation.
Dr Zahraa Hussein. She is a general practitioner, not a specialist psychiatrist or paediatrician. Ask for her when you book and say what the appointment is about so enough time is allowed.
No. ADHD assessment is privately billed. Standard GP consultations at this practice remain bulk billed with a valid Medicare card.
Yes, both. What we gather differs — school reports and a teacher's observations carry particular weight for children.
No. Assessment comes first, and it takes more than one appointment. Anyone offering a diagnosis and a prescription in a single short visit is moving faster than the evidence allows.
Then it should say what is going on instead, or what to look at next. That is a genuine and useful outcome, and often the more helpful one.
Your assessment and any diagnosis form part of your confidential medical record, like anything else. Reports go to you and to anyone you ask us to send them to, and to nobody else.
It varies. Expect a long first appointment and at least one follow-up, with information gathered in between. Assessments that need sleep, mood or another condition sorted out first take longer.
General information onlyThis 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.
Bulk billed with a valid Medicare card · Mon–Fri 8:00am–5:00pm · Muswellbrook Fair, Rutherford Road.
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