General medicine
Minimum referral criteria
All requests are categorised using state‑wide urgency criteria, condition‑specific as below.
Category 1 - Seen within 30 days |
Category 2 - Seen within 90 days |
Category 3 - Seen within 365 days |
Conditions
- Anaemia
- Complex or undifferentiated medical problems
- Complex paediatric patients transitioning to adult services
- Falls
- Medication review or poly‑pharmacy
- Osteoarthritis, gout, and joint pain
- Pre‑operative medical assessment
- States of altered neurological function
- Syncope or pre‑syncope
- Unintentional weight loss
- Wounds of uncertain cause or non‑healing ulcers
Exclusions
- Clearly evident mental health disorders requiring psychiatric consultation
- Genetic testing or counselling
- Requests for respite care, ACAT assessments, or other forms of assessment or supportive care in the presence of established diagnoses and management plans, or where patients with established mental capacity to make decisions refuse such assessments or care
- Reviews relating to workers' compensation claims, NDIS eligibility, disability pensions, driving license renewals, or other legal and administrative procedures
- Reviews relating to drug withdrawal or detoxification
Information for general medicine referrals
Include the standard information and any condition-specific information.
Indicate in the referral if the patient is unable to access mandatory tests or investigations due to cost or local unavailability.
Standard information for all referrals
Reason for request
- To establish a diagnosis
- For treatment or intervention
- For advice and management
- For specialist to take over management
- Reassurance for general practitioner or second opinion
- For a specified test or investigation the general practitioner can't order, or the patient can't afford or access
- Reassurance for the patient or family
- For other reason (e.g., rapidly accelerating disease progression)
- Clinical judgement indicates a referral for specialist review is necessary
Patient's demographic details
- Full name (including aliases)
- Date of birth
- Residential and postal address
- Phone contact numbers – home, mobile and alternative
- Medicare number (where eligible)
- Name of the parent or caregiver (if appropriate)
- Preferred language and interpreter requirements
- Identifies as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Referring practitioner details
- Full name
- Full address
- Contact details – phone, fax, email
- Provider number
- Date of referral
- Signature
- Patient's usual general practitioner (if different from above)
Relevant clinical information about the condition
- Inclusion of Clinical Prioritisation Criteria (CPC) where relevant
- Presenting symptoms (evolution and duration)
- Physical findings
- Investigations carried out and results as indicated in the relevant pathway
- Details of previous treatment (including systemic and topical medications prescribed) including the course and outcome of the treatment
- Options already pursued
- Body mass index (BMI)
- Details of any associated medical conditions which may affect the condition or its treatment (e.g. diabetes), noting these must be stable and controlled prior to referral
- Current medications and dosages
- Drug allergies
- Alcohol, tobacco and other drugs use
Clinical modifiers
- Impact on employment
- Impact on education
- Impact on home
- Impact on activities of daily living
- Impact on ability to care for others
- Impact on personal frailty or safety
- Identifies as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Other relevant information
- Willingness to have surgery (where surgery is a likely intervention)
- Choice to be treated as a public or private patient
- Compensable status (e.g., DVA, WorkCover, motor vehicle insurance)
Information for your patient
Expected time frame for appointment notifications
- Once the request is received, categorisation by the hospital will occur.
- General practitioners and patients are notified of the assigned category between 14 days to 1 month after completed request is received.
- Patients are usually notified of the upcoming appointment time and date approximately 4 weeks prior unless short notice appointments become available.
Appointment information
- Patients will be given an appointment via phone, SMS, or letter.
- The patient must contact the hospital to reschedule if they are not able to attend.
- If the patient fails to respond to 2 appointment offers:
- They will be discharged back to their general practitioner.
- They can have a new request for assessment sent to the hospital if the need still exists.
- The patient's first appointment may not always be with a specialist. Where appropriate, the request may be sent to a public allied health or nursing service for initial assessment and management. A specialist assessment may then be arranged or ruled out.
Ask your patient to:
- take a list of current medications, and all relevant radiology films and reports to appointments.
- advise of any change in circumstance (e.g., getting worse or becoming pregnant), as this may affect the request for assessment.
- update their contact details (e.g., phone number and address) with the hospital.
Last updated: 24 January 2020
