Welcome to our Newest Client!

What to Bring to Your First Visit

• Your referral letter, including Eating Disorder Management Plan, or Team Care Arrangement (if you have one)
• A list of your current medications
• Any copies of blood tests you have
• Contact details of others on your team, like your psychologist or psychiatrist (if not already on referral)
• A parent or guardian to sign forms if 16yrs or younger

Medicare Plans

If your GP has referred you under an 'Eating Disorder Management Plan', or a ‘Team Care Arrangement’ for management of a chronic health condition, you will need to ensure that you have seen your GP to arrange this before your first visit, and you’ll need to bring this paperwork with you.

If you’ve previously set up your bank details with Medicare, we can process your claim on the spot, and you only need to pay the gap fee on the day (fee schedule below).

Private Health

If your health insurance ‘extras’ policy covers Dietetics, you can claim your rebate on the spot and just pay the gap.

* Please note that if you have both private health cover and a Medicare Team Care plan, you can’t claim both rebates at the same visit. We’ll help you work out the best way to maximise your rebates.

What to Expect During the Session

Please allow 50mins for your initial assessment, as well as follow up visits. You’re welcome to bring a family member/ partner or support person/ the household cook.

Your first appointment with both dietetics and psychology is an ‘assessment’ appointment, which means it’s mostly about us getting to know you, so that we can start to come up with a plan together, and decide which treatment type/s might suit you best. As a specialist service, we work best as a team, so new clients are recommended to see both a dietitian and psychologist (unless you already see either at another practice- we're very happy to work with external providers who are already on your team!).

When you start psychology treatment, it usually takes a few appointments to get to know you and your needs well, in order to decide the best treatment plan together. We can offer a range of types of therapy or treatment models, eg, cognitive behavioural therapy (or CBT-E, the enhanced version for eating disorder treatment), psycho-dynamic therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and mindfulness based approaches. 

Many of our team across all professions are trained in the same treatment models, particularly Family Based Treatment, and CBT-E. This is great for you, as it means all our clinicians on your team speak the same language, and we can more effectively and efficiently co-ordinate the care we provide to you. 

Your dietetics plan might include things like behavioural counselling, helping you to identify and manage eating disorder urges, building skills to do with eating, like meal planning or appetite awareness, it might include building your knowledge of nutrition theory (although you probably already know more than you'll ever need to live a good life!), or it might include experimenting with some specific ways to structure your eating habits, until you’ve built the necessary new skills to enable more flexibility with eating.

Regardless of where you start, your feedback and progress over the coming weeks and months will determine the path your treatment takes, and our team are continually reassessing how we can best support you.

Some of the specifics we’ll talk about in your first dietetics appointment include:

• The background of your eating troubles and relationship with food. What specific difficulties are you having? Eg patterns of restriction,  binging, feeling out of control around certain foods, or physical issues like digestive discomfort. We want to hear your story 🙂
• Your usual eating patterns/ family eating patterns (no need to record any food details before your visit).
• Where you're at with your disordered eating treatment, other treatment experiences so far and what you liked/ disliked about them, who else might be on your treatment team. What progress you're proud of, and what's most difficult for you right now.
• What you’re hoping to achieve from nutrition counselling. What would a ‘successful’ outcome feel like to you?
• Relevant details of your medical history and your family's medical history
• Results of any recent blood tests (please bring print outs if you have them)
• Medications you’re currently taking, and any nutritional supplements

Please arrive 10mins early to your first appointment

Our policy is to run to time, so you'll need a few minutes before your appointment time to complete intake forms, if these have not already been completed online.

Please also review our fee structure, and cancellation policy, published on our FAQs page. 

We look forward to meeting you!