How to access QuEDS services
Referral process
You will need a QuEDS referral form to be filled out by your General Practitioner (GP) to access any QuEDS outpatient services. At your booking with the GP, they will need to take your sitting and standing physical observations (blood pressure, heart rate etc.) and ask you some questions about your eating behaviours.
When attending your GP appointment, it is also recommended that you discuss with them whether the Medicare Eating Disorder Plan may also be a suitable treatment option for you (engaging in a Medicare plan does not impact your eligibility to access the QuEDS outpatient clinic). The GP will provide you with a pathology form to get some bloods taken. Once you have had these taken at the pathologist, your doctor will need to send the fully completed referral form, with the blood results, to the QuEDS fax or email for review by our clinical staff.
Appointment scheduling
After this review, our administration staff will attempt to phone you to book your appointment. If there is no response to attempts to contact you by phone, you will be booked into the next available clinic appointment and a letter will be mailed to the address listed. If you have not heard anything from QuEDS 7 days after the referral and blood tests being attended, please feel free to contact our intake line to confirm that we have received the referral (if there are details missing we may be trying to contact yourself or your GP to resolve this).
While we aim to see you as soon as we can, once we receive your referral, there may be a 4-8 week wait for outpatient appointments. We recommend ongoing weekly reviews with your GP (for blood tests and postural physical observations) while on the waiting list for our Specialist Consultation Clinic.
Attending this clinic will also allow for assessment for additional QuEDS services suitability, which include our treatment services such as Individual Therapies and Day Program. Other public and private eating disorder specialist options can also be discussed if that is the person’s preference.
Cost
Attending this clinic is voluntary with no out of pocket expense for Medicare card holders. If you do not hold a Medicare card please feel free to contact QuEDS for further information (i.e. international students often have no out of pocket expense under private health cover). It is available to people with all eating disorder types and BMI ranges.