The Practice: CIVIC Family Health Care consists of partners Dr Rhondda Turner, and Dr Emily Marfell. Associate GPs are Dr Vicky Samuels, Dr Mandy Chadwick, Dr Alex Dunn, Dr Tomi Moore, Dr Henry McKee, Dr Bonnie Zijsling, Dr Anne Musters and Dr Kitty van Bekkum.

We are a training practice and may sometimes have a first year GP registrar, medical student or house officer doctor working with us.

We have around twenty permanent members of staff including General Business Manager Andrea Cunniffe and an amazing team of administration and nursing staff.

Administration: The administration team members have the knowledge to assist you to make the most appropriate appointment with a clinician and will welcome you to our practice with a smile. We want to provide you and your family with the best possible service and health outcome.

Nursing: Our nurse team run clinics for immunisations, health checks and minor procedures. They will help you make appropriate appointments via our triage system and call you with advice and reminders as well as assisting our GP’s.

Healthcare Assistant: This position forms an integral part of our clinical team helping GP’s and nurses with processes and procedures for your care.

Together, the clinical team (Doctors, Nurses, and HCAs) provide a range of health services. For a comprehensive list see the final page “Practice Services.”

Opening Hours: CIVIC Health operates from 8am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday. Our phone switches to an after hours service at 5pm. We are closed on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

Disabled Facilities: Our facility is fully accessible including bathroom facilities. If you require any help, please ask one of our team and we will be happy to assist.

CIVIC Pharmacy: Situated within the same building, CIVIC Pharmacy is a separate business from the practice. Practice patients are not obliged to use the pharmacy, although some find it convenient.

Communication: You can contact us by phone on 03 578 0199. You will be directed by an answering machine to (1) Reception, (2) Prescription line. Despite having eight incoming lines, our phones can be very busy! If it is an emergency, please hang up and dial 111 otherwise please be patient, we will answer your call as soon as we can.

If you are requiring a same day appointment, you will be asked to leave your name and number with some simple details of what the appointment is for. We will get a triage nurse to call you back and make the best plan for you. Please be aware that we will do our best to get back to you as soon as possible but some days the list is very long and it takes time.

If you have a cell phone, we can send your test results to you via a text message. Please do not reply to a text message unless it specifically asks you to. We do not accept prescription requests via text message.

CIVIC Family Health Care provides a patient portal – MyIndici, whereby patients may book appointments online, have access to notes and results, request a repeat prescription and email their GP with a simple query. Please ask about this and reception can help set you up.

Parking: There are limited free parking spaces available around the building for patients and a larger public car park on the Countdown corner.

Test Results: If you are having some investigations such as blood tests, x-rays, biopsies etc. you will be told when the results are to be expected. You will not be contacted for normal results but if it is anything else, one of our team will be in contact. You may phone the Nurse to receive your results if you wish.

Lab: We do not provide a blood taking (phlebotomy) service on site. Patients are required to book an appointment with either Awanui Labs on Maxwell road or at the hospital. The contact phone number is 0800 633 522. The lab at 9 Maxwell Road, is only a 5-minute walk and is open 7.30am to 12.30pm. Alternatively the hospital lab is open from 8am to 5pm daily. Lab forms are now done electronically.

Payments: Please be aware that in accordance with our Terms of Trade, we expect payment of all accounts on the day. Any debts or late payments will incur an overdue fee, and unpaid accounts will be sent to debt collection.

Feedback: We would like to hear your suggestions and welcome your feedback about our service. Tell us if there is anything we can improve on or are missing. We also like to hear where you think we have done well or helped in any way. Your information is shared with the team and helps to plan future quality improvement for the practice.

Chaperone: A chaperone is available to be present during all examinations if you wish. Please just ask one of our admin team or let your Doctor/Nurse know at the start of your appointment.

Complaints: If you feel you have not received fair and appropriate treatment, please tell us. Every member of staff can provide advice and assistance as to the correct procedure to file a complaint. Further information regarding complaints and your rights as a patient is available at reception to take away.

Practice Policies: It is essential in a busy general practice such as CIVIC Family Health Care to have procedures and policies in place. This helps to provide a consistent service that meets Medico-legal and Health & Safety requirements. This includes but is not limited to policies such as medication (requesting repeat prescriptions) and travel (health advice and vaccinations).

Emergency Procedures: There is the potential for an emergency situation at any time. This can include medical emergencies, fire, earthquake, or a violent incident. We have procedures in place to deal safely and effectively with emergency situations. Fire evacuation drills are also part of essential training for all staff. If you are involved in an “emergency event or drill” while visiting the practice, please try to keep calm and follow the direction of staff.

Prescription Charges: If you attend your GP for a review or consultation and you are prescribed medication, there is no extra charge. This is included in the appointment fee. However, if you request a prescription over the phone or in writing via reception and you do not require an appointment, the charge is $25 and there is a 3 working days turnaround time for it to be completed. “Same Day” prescriptions ordered before 2pm can be done on the day and cost $30. For all “Out of Town” requests please provide email address for the pharmacy you wish it to be sent to.

CIVIC Family Health Care provides a patient portal, My Indici, where you can also request a prescription. Prescriptions requested via My Indici are discounted to $20.

All prescriptions are sent directly via electronic means to the pharmacy of your choice so please remember to let us know which pharmacy you prefer so we can update your records. If no pharmacy is nominated, the prescription will go to CIVIC Pharmacy.

Consultations

You have a choice about the type of appointment you have with your doctor with both virtual or face to face consultations available.

Virtual: Consultations can include phone or video. A video consultation can be arranged where you can still see and talk to your doctor, but you do not have to be in the practice. The video consultation is very secure. You will be sent an invite to the consultation and it will be only yourself and any support person/s you want and the doctor. A phone consult is a phone call from your doctor to you at a specific consultation time to discuss your requirements (please be aware as it can be in practice these appointments may not run exactly to time although we will endeavour to keep them as on track as possible).

Face to Face: These consultations are available and may be more suitable for your health needs. You may be asked screening questions prior to entering our practice to keep yourself and others safe. We adhere to strict cleaning and infection controls to ensure the safety of everyone visiting us.

Both GP and Nurse appointment times are set at 15-minutes. You are welcome to request a double appointment for a longer consultation, but this will incur a double charge. If you have more than one or two issues to discuss with the doctor, please ask for a longer appointment time. Please be mindful not to bring a “list” of complaints as there will not always be time in a 15-minute appointment to address them safely and appropriately.

Urgent – On the day appointments: We retain slots for urgent appointments including a respiratory clinic most afternoons. These appointments are available after a discussion with a triage nurse to assess the most urgent requirements and make a plan. The respiratory clinic operates outside of the practice in the foyer clinic room to help keep respiratory bugs away from our vulnerable patients. Respiratory patients will be asked to wait in their vehicles or in the foyer for the doctor. We do our best to help as many people as possible but some days there are more in need than we have appointments, and you may be referred to Urgent Care or Practice Plus for help.

Accessing Care Out of Hours

Urgent Care is based at Wairau Hospital, Gate 2, off Hospital Road and provides after hours and urgent GP care. Patients can access this service from 8am to 8pm seven days a week including public holidays, no appointment necessary. Telephone 03 520 6377.

Practice Plus is a virtual service that is manned by GP’s who can help when we are full. It may save you a wait up at the Urgent Care. They are available weekdays until 10pm and weekends and public holidays 8am-8pm. Go to our website for more information www.civichealth.co.nz or call 0800-7722-7587 or visit www.practiceplus.nz

Healthline: 0800 611 116 is New Zealand’s national telephone triage and health service. It is staffed by experienced registered nurses who provide health information and recommend appropriate care for callers. It is free to call Healthline from a landline or cell phone.

Wairau Hospital Emergency Department provides emergency care 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Wairau Hospital is situated via Gate 2, 30 Hospital Road, Witherlea, Blenheim. Telephone 03 520 9999.

Conduct

As health professionals and providers of a health service we demand that all Civic Family Health Care staff will be respectful, kind, trustworthy and professional at all times. In return, we expect the same honesty, courtesy, and respectful behaviour from our patients. We want your experience to be a positive one, within a supportive and caring environment so that you can focus on being healthy and well.

If you are unable to attend a scheduled appointment or are running late, please phone to let us know as soon as possible so that we can reschedule your appointment. We reserve the right to charge for appointments that you fail to attend without sufficient notification. We have a policy regarding this.

Please note that we do not allow the filming of procedures in this Practice, and we would appreciate if you could please turn off your mobile phone before going into the consulting room. Sometimes your GP will need to photograph a skin lesion in order to provide a point of reference for comparison at a later date, or to accompany a referral. You will be asked for our consent and the photograph will be loaded into your medical records on the computer and/or sent via a secure health site to the specialist service you are being referred to.

1. Our standard consultation fees are displayed in the Practice waiting area, on our Website www.civichealth.co.nz and they are available on request.  Our fees take into account the following factors:  

• Time spent in consultation 

• Complexity of the condition 

• The costs of running a medical practice  

• Whether you are entitled to funding available from the Government, public agencies or other sources. 

2. We require payment of our fees at the time of your consultation or when the service are provided.  Prior to new patient enrolment consultations and in circumstances where a debt is already incurred, payment may be requested prior to consultation.  We can accept part payment only when an Automatic Payment (AP) is in place.  The Practice bank account is on the invoice and you can organise Automatic Payments with your bank. 

3. If payment is not made on the day, you will be invoiced.   The Invoice will incur a $10 admin fee if not paid by the end of the month. 

Your account will be sent to a debt collection agency if not fully paid within 60 days (unless an AP is in place), and you will incur additional charges from the agency.  We will also: 

• Charge you the cost of recovery of outstanding fees and interest including our legal costs 

• Decline to provide you with further medical services, except in an emergency. 

4. If you wish to cancel an appointment, a minimum of 2 hours’ notice is required.  Failure to attend, or failure to give notice may incur a fee based on the type of appointment booked. 

5. By enrolling at Civic Family Health Care, You authorise us to: 

• Disclose any information about you for the purpose of instructing other persons including a debt collecting agency to recover any outstanding fees from you, and 

• Send you information about how we may assist you by providing other medical or health services to you, unless you inform us that you do not want this service. 

  You acknowledge that: 

• All services may attract a fee 

• You remain liable for all fees, costs and disbursements (including laboratory testing where you are not eligible for funded services in New Zealand) charged by us for the services. 

General practice provides comprehensive primary, community-based, and continuing patient-centred health care to patients enrolled with them and others who consult. General practice services include the diagnosis, management and treatment of health conditions, continuity of health care throughout the lifespan, health promotion, prevention, screening, and referral to hospital and specialists.  

Most general practice providers are affiliated to a PHO. The fund-holding role of PHOs allows an extended range of services to be provided across the collective of providers within a PHO.  

What is a PHO? 

Primary Health Organisations are the local structures for delivering and co-ordinating primary health care services. PHOs bring together doctors, nurses and other health professionals (such as Maori health workers, health promoters, dietitians, pharmacists, physiotherapists, mental health workers and midwives) in the community to serve the needs of their enrolled populations.  

PHOs receive a set amount of funding from the government to ensure the provision of a range of health services, including visits to the doctor. Funding is based on the people enrolled with the PHO and their characteristics (e.g. age, gender, and ethnicity). Funding also pays for services that help people stay healthy and services that reach out to groups in the community who are missing out on health services or who have poor health.  

Benefits of Enrolling 

Enrolling is free and voluntary. If you choose not to enrol you can still receive health services from a chosen GP / general practice / provider of First Level primary health care services. Advantages of enrolling are that your visits to the doctor will be cheaper and you will have direct access to a range of services linked to the PHO.  

How do I enrol? 

To enrol, you need to complete an Enrolment Form at the general practice of your choice. Parents can enrol children under 16 years of age, but children over 16 years need to sign their own form.  

What happens if I go to another General Practice? 

You can go to another general practice or change to a new general practice at any time. If you are enrolled in a PHO through one general practice and visit another practice as a casual patient you will pay a higher fee for that visit. So if you have more than one general practice you should consider enrolling with the practice you visit most often.  

What happens if the general practice changes to a new PHO? 

If the general practice changes to a new PHO the practice will make this information available to you.  

What happens if I am enrolled in a general practice but don’t see them very often? 

If you have not received services from your general practice in a 3 year period it is likely that the practice will contact you and ask if you wish to remain with the practice. If you are not able to be contacted or do not respond your name will be taken off the Practice and PHO Enrolment Registers. You can re-enrol with the same general practice or another general practice and the affiliated PHO at a later time.  

How do I know if I’m eligible for publicly funded health and disability services? 

Talk to the practice staff, call 0800 855 151, or visit Eligibility for publicly funded health services – Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora and work through the Guide to Eligibility Criteria.  

Access to my health information 

I have the right to access (and have corrected) my health information under Rules 6 and 7 of the Health Information Privacy Code 1994.  

Visiting another GP 

If I visit another GP who is not my regular doctor I will be asked for permission to share information from the visit with my regular doctor or practice.  

If I have a High User Health Card or Community Services Card and I visit another GP who is not my regular doctor, he/she can make a claim for a subsidy, and the practice I am enrolled in will be informed of the date of that visit. The name of the practice I visited and the reason(s) for the visit will not be disclosed unless I give my consent.  

Patient Enrolment Information 

The information I have provided on the Practice Enrolment Form will be:  

o held by the practice  

o used by the Ministry of Health to give me a National Health Index (NHI) number, or update any changes  

o sent to the PHO and Ministry of Health to obtain subsidised funding on my behalf  

o used to determine eligibility to receive publicly-funded services. Information may be compared with other government agencies but only when permitted under the Privacy Act.  

Health Information 

Members of my health team may share relevant health information with other health professionals and organisations directly involved in my care. This health information may be securely transferred electronically. If I wish to have more information about electronic referrals I can contact KHW Marlborough Primary Health Organisation at erms@marlboroughpho.org.nz

Audit 

In the case of financial audits, my health information may be reviewed by an auditor for checking a financial claim made by the practice, but only according to the terms and conditions of section 22G of the Health Act (or any subsequent applicable Act). I may be contacted by the auditor to check that services have been received. If the audit involves checking on health matters, an appropriately qualified health care practitioner will view the health records.  

Health Programmes 

Health data relevant to a programme in which I am enrolled (e.g. Breast Screening, Immunisation, Diabetes) may be sent to the PHO or the external health agency managing this programme.  

Other Uses of Health Information 

Health information which will not include my name but may include my National Health Index Identifier (NHI) may be used by legitimate health agencies such as the District Health Board, Ministry of Health or PHO for the following purposes, as long as it is not used or published in a way that can identify me:  

o health service planning and reporting  

o monitoring service quality  

o payment  

Research 

My health information may be used for health research, but only if this has been approved by an Ethics Committee and will not be used or published in a way that can identify me.  

Except as listed above, I understand that details about my health status or the services I have received will remain confidential within the medical practice unless I give specific consent for this information to be communicated. 

We pride ourselves in giving the best possible general practice medical care available, but in order to do that and to keep our charges at a reasonable level, we would like you to be aware of our policy with regard to non-payment of accounts.   

The Policy is as follows: 

• Payment for a consultation, whether face to face or virtual, is expected on the day of consultation. 

• When payment is not made immediately, accounts must be paid before the end of the calendar month.  If payment is not made by that time, an administration fee of $10 can be added. 

• Credit extending beyond one month must be arranged with the General Business Manager and alternative arrangements made for payment.  A $10 administration fee will be added to your account monthly for every month the account remains unpaid. 

• All accounts extending past the 90 day period, without an arrangement being made, will be referred to a debt collection agency and the costs associated with this will be added to the patients accounts for payment. 

• CIVIC Family Health Care reserves the right to vary this policy as it sees fit. 

If you have an queries regarding this policy, please do not hesitate to contact the General Business Manager. 

CIVIC Family Health Care , known as "the Practice," agrees to provide medical services to the named patient as per the enrolment form known as "the Patient" under the terms of this agreement. 

This agreement is based on the following provisions:  

1. The Practice is to provide routine medical services in a timely manner during usual practice business hours to the best of their abilities 

2.The Patient will comply with reasonable requests regarding behaviour within the practice and payment of fees for services provided 

3. The Patient agrees:  

• To treat the staff at the Practice in a respectful manner.   Any abusive language or aggressive/intimidating behaviour will not be tolerated. 

• To abide by the terms of trade of the Practice 

• To respect the appointment procedures with regard to making appointments 

Failure to meet the terms of this agreement and the Civic Family Health Care terms of trade may result in the withdrawal of the medical services provided by the practice.