paediatrician rates

[Matryoshka]

Is $245 the normal rate for a paediatrican? i nearly had a heart attack when they told me over the phone... you get $130 back.

[Marlene]

My sons paed cost $145 and I got $115 back.

ETA: I just noticed in your sig that you have twins. Are they both going? Maybe that's why it is more.

ETA again: LOL, scratch that, looked more carefully, not twins...tandem feeding two different ages. You go girl!!

[mum3girls]

Is that a first visit? I know we paid more for the first visit, but our normal cost is $115 and we get $62 back

[Nadine]

I am guessing fees have gone up since DD was born, but we paid $90 for our appointment (I'm in Sydney).

[Marlene]

Yeah, thats true, first visits are usually more expensive, our $145 rate was a first visit.

[Laranna]

Ours was $98 first visit of which I got $90 back (yep, we've reached the medicare safety net threshold ) and subsequent visits $58.

[nic]

Ours was $120 per visit. When DS was born, the paed, wasn''t there so they called in another one from the public hospital who charged us $280, then we had to pay for our paed when he finally checked DS, then another 3 visits/checkups in the hospital. Thankgod we had already hit the safety net!

Nic

[Curly]

DS saw a paed while still in hospital (he'd lost 10% of his bodyweight) and that cost $199. And all he did was listen to his heart, remark briefly on his birthmark and tell me that he was happy to wait another 12 hours for my milk to come in.

[Tobily]

When we took Toby back for his routine 6wk check to the ped that attended him at birth it was over $200.

Had to laugh when he said we could bring him to him for all his health checks or take him to our (long term, trusted) GP. Ped was an arrogant so and so, GP is luffly....needless to say we never took him back to the ped.

[~Raven~]

That would be for the first visit. I'm sure Masons first one was about $275. The next visits will be anywhere from $60 - $95 depending on the length of them.

The good news is (I hope it's good news for you ) depending on if you've reached the medicare safety net you can get most of it back. eg Masons most recent ped visit was a $95 one of which we got back $83.70. If not then you have contributed a hefty chunk toward the safety net and you will be closer to it for later on in the year.
(If you get FTB A & B your safety net should only be around $520 worth of out of pocket which you should be quite close to after having a bub )

Hope you can get for help with the reflux!

[Schmickers]

Wow, that's pretty hefty, even for a first visit, but I guess not unthinkable. We paid $150 for our first visits, and I think just under $100 per visit after that.

[Pandora]

Ours is $160 for the first visit and I think $90 for subsequent ones.
She is amazing and worth every cent.

[Janie]

Do you mind saying who you go to Ray?

[Liz]

I can't remember paying more first visit.. but ours is $100 a visit... dunno what we get back from medicare. Don't know if we've reached the threshold yet or not.

[Matryoshka]

Okay i guess it seems to vary.

I suppose i'm wondering if its worth going considering the issue is reflux, i know he has it, he's already being medicated for it via my gp... Is there anything else the paed can do? what will my $245 buy me i guess LOL?

Also i have no idea about the threshhold, just googled it, so hard to make sense of. Don't even know if we registered.

[Liz]

what will my $245 buy me i guess LOL?

don't really know TBH! I'm not even sure why we're still going.. he just wants to keep seeing her every 3 months LOL. We're only seeing a paed because she was prem, but we've had no ongoing problems at all. And when I mentioned that solids are giving her terrible wind pains at night, he didn't have a solution except to offer a referral to a dietitian (which i'm not bothering with).

I guess at least you know it's a dr that specialises in babies & kids. GP's might not know much more than prescribing a certain med.. maybe a paed will have more remedies up his sleeve? I don't really know. It's a shame the visit is going to cost so much, coz it wouldn't hurt to see what he has to say (only hurts the hip pocket!)