Terms of Business and Fees
Initial appointments are charged at £1000
Follow-up appointments are charged at £500 per hour pro rata, so a 25 minute face-to-face appointment with 5 minutes of administration is £250.
Fees are due on the day of the appointment. Please liaise with my PA, Ramona Poole, for payment details.
For international work, fee structures and daily rates can be obtained from my PA, Ramona Poole, on request.
My basic rate is £500 an hour. This is in line with other senior central London Paediatricians and Psychiatrists, who have held their CCST (Certificate of Specialist Training) for over 20 years.
An initial full assessment carried out in a single appointment will cost £1000. This assumes about 1.5 to 2 hours of face-to-face work, as well as typing and checking reports, and letter reading and writing.
Usually there is no difficulty with health insurance reimbursement but please check with your insurer beforehand. Not all UK health insurance companies cover Psychiatry, or so-called chronic disorders, “developmental problems” such as ADHD, or what they refer to as “behaviour problems” such as Substance Misuse.
Some insurance companies object to charges above £180 for an initial first appointment because, in many areas of medicine, an initial appointment lasts only 30 minutes. Psychiatry is very different. It would be impossible to do a good quality Child and Adolescent initial assessment in 30 minutes! Because of this issue AXA PPP have recently been refusing to pay invoices above £160 for an initial appointment. Beware that in these cases there will be a large shortfall in costs (unless the insurer agrees to pay), which will have to be met by families themselves.
Multiple letters (e.g. special letters to schools), telephone calls, and liaison with other professionals, or other family relatives (who did not attend the initial assessment), inevitably require professional time and will be charged for on a pro rata basis.
If the need for a letter arises directly from a current face-to-face consultation then it is very unlikely that I would need to charge for the letter. However, later requests for certificates, sick letters, extra time in exams, letters for courts that arise separately, and requests outside of the immediate needs of a direct face-to-face recent appointment, will be charged at my hourly rate pro-rata. Likewise, subsequent email or telephone queries which may arise a month or more after the initial consultation will be charged for at my hourly rate pro-rata.
Appointments cancelled less than two full working days before they are scheduled will be charged for in full, as it is difficult to offer the space to other patients and make arrangements for them to attend at very short notice. This is common practice for medical professionals, especially in central London where office rents are high.
Please endeavour to collaborate with my PA after your appointments, either directly or by email or telephone, in order facilitate payment on the day of appointment.
Telephone Appointments/Queries
It is very difficult for me to return telephone calls as my day dictates that I am fully booked with patients virtually back-to-back from 9am- until 6pm. The only way that I can undertake telephone discussions is to have them pre-scheduled into my working day as telephone appointments. Telephone bookings are scheduled by my PA, Mrs Ramona Poole. A charge of my hourly rate pro-rata for scheduled telephone calls will apply.
Emails
Much of the same applies to emails. I receive a large number of emails daily and dealing with them typically takes over an hour a day. Email updates providing extra clinical information can be processed free of charge. However, if it is appropriate for me to respond to the email I will charge at my pro rata hourly rate, depending on the time required. If this only takes a couple of minutes to type out there will be no charge. For simple queries this is definitely the best way to contact me, both in and out of clinic hours. In the rare case that emails are long and complex, I will charge my hourly rate pro-rata.
Prescriptions
Repeat prescriptions, outside appointment times, are charged at £40. Controlled Drug prescriptions are charged at £50.
Please allow at least 7-10 working days for repeat prescription requests. Usually they can be processed quickly and easily on the following Wednesday/Thursday but occasionally I may be travelling internationally.
All financial administrative matters are handled by my PA, Mrs Ramona Poole.