Dr Leisa Davina
Clinical Psychologist
Thank you for your enquiry regarding a consultation with me. A lot of people have not had any experience with psychologists before they come and see me, and you may be anxious about what will happen. For this reason Ihave written this handout to provide you with some information about what I do and how I work. Please feel free to discuss any of these points with me and raise any questions you might have. Psychology need not be mysterious and I hope that you do not worry unnecessarily about coming to see me. I will always try to explain what I am doing and I encourage you to ask questions.
What usually happens?
Your first consultation usually involves describing what is troubling you. I may ask you to do some psychological tests and/or answer a range of questions to help me get a clear picture. I should then be able to discuss how I see the difficulties you are experiencing, what I suggest I do about it and how long this might take.
Later consultations usually involve giving you information and suggestions and helping you learn appropriate living or coping skills. I try to make this as practical as possible as I feel it is important you go away able to do something about your difficulties.
There are many different schools of psychology. This may not matter to you, but, ifit does, I practice research-based interventions of psychotherapy. I choose this approach because it has a solid scientific basis, so what I do is likely to be helpful and unlikely to be harmful. Non-scientific approaches are unable to show this. You will find this approach places a strong emphasis on practical problem-solving.
In a typical consultation, I usually review your progress so far, do some trouble-shooting if you need it, and then help you to go a bit further in the program we outlined in your first consultation. I won’t encourage you just to sit around and talk about your difficulties.
Homework
I will usually work out with you some homework to do before your next consultation. This might involve some reading, keeping a record of your problem, trying out my suggestions for tackling the problem, or recording how that went. This homework is a very important part of your therapy program. You won’t solve much just talking with me. You will usually solve your problems by trying my suggestions in the situations where your problem occurs.
I would like you to have at least tried your homework before your next consultation. If you try but have difficulty, that’s OK. Please come back and discuss the difficulty with me. If some other genuine problem prevents you from trying your homework, please come and discuss that.
Confidentiality
All information and records regarding you will be kept strictly confidential. I will not normally release any information about you to anyone, unless you give me a written and signed request to do so. But you should know that there are some possible exceptions to this rule:
- If you indicate that you seriously intend to hurt or kill yourself or someone else, I am obliged to notify potential helpers or victims.
- If you are legally a minor (under 18 years of age), I am obliged to keep your parent(s) or guardian(s) informed of your progress, if they ask. But I am not obliged to give those details of my discussions with you.
- If there is an overriding legal or social obligation to do so, I may disclose information to the relevant authorities about a patient’s criminal acts.
- If you are involved in a court case and I appear on your behalf or if I am subpoenaed to appear, you should know that psychologists’ records have no special legal privilege.
Time and punctuality
A consultation will usually last for 50 minutes. If I am late, you will still receive a full consultation or some similar arrangements will be made, fair to you. If you are late, your consultation will still finish at the scheduled time, to be fair to me and patients with appointments after yours.
Please don’t bring young children
Please do not bring your young child (or children) to a consultation, even if it is your child’s behaviour that is the problem, unless I ask you to bring them. For a lot of young children’s problems, I will usually be working with the parents on strategies that might be useful to manage or alleviate the difficulties being experienced. If it will be helpful to talk with your child, I will let you know and invite you to bring him or her to the next consultation.
I know that arranging child-minding can be difficult, but you might find that young children can be somewhat distracting for you during a consultation and Iam unfortunately, not able to provide a child-minding service at the consulting rooms.
Broken appointments
If you are unable to attend an appointment, I will usually charge you for the missed appointment as it could have been given to someone else. If you want to change or cancel an appointment, I require two working days notice to give me a reasonable chance to fill that appointment time. Please note that if you are on a mental health care plan, Medicare will not provide you with a rebate for missed sessions, so you will have to make the full payment privately.
Payments for missed sessions are as follows:
Within 48 hours: Half your usual session cost.
Within 24 hours: Your full session cost.
Payments for missed sessions must be made prior to your next booked session.
I have also introduced a policy whereby if you do not attend twobooked sessions without a reason such as an unexpected and significant personal emergency, I may choose todiscontinue therapy at that time.Again, this is in fairness to you, me and to clients on the waiting list for therapy. You can of course re-contact to wait for a new place to open up.
Payment
I ask that you pay at the end of each consultation by EFTPOS (cash if necessary and including credit card if desired).If you have cancellation fees outstanding, I ask that these are paid for prior to your next booked appointment.
Private Health Fund Rebates
I am registered with the major health funds as providers of psychological services.
Fees
You will receive a significant rebate on your session costs from Medicare, if you are referred by a GP or psychiatrist on a mental health care plan. While the standard fee, as recommended by the Australian Psychological Society is presently $235 for a 50 minute consultation,I charge $180 per 50 minute session. If you have been referred by a GP or Psychiatrist under the new Medicare scheme, we can organize that your rebate be directly put back into your bank account, so long as you have provided these to Medicare. Insurance company covered sessionsand Veteran’s Affairs accounts are billed independently of you with a different fee structure, so long as the appropriate referrals are in place and sessions have been approved. Work cover claims are charged at the standard $180 rate and you will need to apply for a rebate from Workcover as I no longer bill directly to Workcover.
What am I up for?
Most people do not need a large number of consultations. The average is about six to twelve, over two to four months, sometimes less, sometimes more. We will try to give you an estimate of how many consultations we would suggest at your first consultation. Most people space their consultations one to two weeks apart, to have time to try their homework. This also spreads out your costs.
Under a GP or psychiatrist referral, you are entitled to 10 rebated sessions per calendar year, but will need to return to your GP or psychiatrist after each block of 6 sessions to validate further sessions.
Please feel free to discuss any part of this letter, or any aspect of your intervention, at any time with me.
Dr Leisa Davina
Clinical Psychologist