Charging a cancellation fee is probably the least enjoyable part of running our services, however, at times it is necessary to ensure that we can remain open.
Bloom Health Clinics cancelation policy is a company policy which is upheld for all clients. Clients are informed of this policy at the time of booking and acknowledge the need to pay a late cancellation or reschedule fee when filling in their initial consult information sheet and consent form.
Bloom Health Clinic operates a strict 48-hour cancellation policy for all appointments booked through our clinic. This means that all appointment cancellations or reschedules must be communicated to the practice 48 hours or more before a scheduled appointment’s start time. This reasonable notice is required as a courtesy to your Bloom Health Clinic practitioner and other clients who are waiting and may require care.
Appointments that are cancelled or not attended within this 48 hour time period will be charged a fee. This cancellation charge will not be claimable through your private health fund or Medicare and will attract GST. If your sessions are covered by a third party such as WorkCover, TPI, or an EAP service, this cancellation charge will not be covered.
Cancellation fees will be charged to the encrypted credit card account details stored on file and are due and payable immediately. Cancelation fees must be paid in full prior to being able to access a subsequent service. Outstanding accounts (maximum term = 5 business days) will incur a $22.00 (inc GST) late payment fee and all future sessions will be put on hold until the account is paid in full.
Please note that as we are not open on Sundays this day is not considered part of the 24/48 hour timeline. We ask that you please keep this in mind if needing to cancel your appointment.
Schedule of Late Cancelation and Reschedule Fees
Late Cancellations & Reschedules
0-24 HRS
24-48 HRS
NO SHOW
Registered Psychologist
$215 +GST
$107.5 +GST
$215 +GST*
Clinical Psychologist
$255 +GST
$127.5 +GST
$255 +GST*
* A no show occurrence will trigger your next booked appointment to be charged 1 day in advance of your session time
Please note that if we are able to fill your spot within the 48 hours the cancellation fee will be reduced to $50 (inc. GST). This fee represents a genuine pre-estimate of our administrative costs in handling late cancelations. We will try at all times to do our best to avoid charging these fees, and hope you will also try to give as much notice as possible in return.
Understanding Our Cancellation Policy
The discussion of money can be a deeply uncomfortable topic, especially within the confines of a therapeutic relationship where compassion, safety, support, and connection are supreme. Recognising that there is a "transactional" aspect to any therapeutic relationship, although unsettling, is necessary to ensure that both parties involved are being acknowledged, considered, and valued.
Why do we have a cancelation policy?
At Bloom Health Clinic, we implement a 48-hour cancellation/rescheduling window to protect our clinicians time, your treatment progression, and the needs of our clients on the cancelation and wait lists.
Your clinician is providing a professional service, their availability is also in high demand, often with several people waiting to get in to see them. Within 48 hours, it is generally not possible to adequately utilize that clinical time. That clinical time when unexpectedly cancelled is a lost hour that could have been utilized to service another client, or tend to administrative work. In addition cancelations have a direct impact on the clinicans income. Here at Bloom our clinicians are contractors, their income is directly linked to the amount of sessions they conduct. In other words, your clinician does not receive a set wage and when a late cancelation occurs that we are unable to fill it means your clinican looses that income. At the end of the day your clinician is also a person who has a world outside of the practise with the usual financial and personal responsibilities that we all carry. From this perspective it is important for us to be able to protect our clinicians time and provide as much stability as possible for their income.
Furthermore late cancelations within 48-hours of your appointment time reduces our ability to fill that appointment time and increases the clinics administration load. Cancellations can also be disruptive to your treatment flow as we are not always able to reschedule your appointment in a timely fashion due to your clinicians books already being full for up to 3-6 months in advance.
By setting consistent boundaries for your work together, the policy aims to make the therapeutic space a reliable and safe container in which you may learn more about yourself and grow unencumbered by unclear expectations. The cancellation & reschedule policy in therapy is one such structure that models and fosters compassionate boundaries.
Our policy is not intended as a punitive action, our biggest priority at Bloom Health Clinic is to provide high quality, consistent therapy that works for the people we support and their families. We want to make sure that you commit yourself to your treatment so that you get the best possible outcomes, thus we try to encourage you to keep your appointment where possible. Overcoming your presenting psychological difficulties requires a commitment to your treatment. Progress simply cannot be made if you do not attend your appointments as scheduled as momentum of treatment is lost.
In addition, while it can be difficult to predict when you may need to cancel or reschedule a session, when we have sufficient notice of cancellation it helps us to minimise disruption to your psychologists time (who has prepared for your consultation to help you achieve your treatment goals) and accommodate our other clients who are on a waiting list to have an earlier appointment.
Notifying Us Of Changes To Your Appointments
If you need to make changes to upcoming appointments, please discuss this directly with your clinician in session or by contacting our admin team .
You can notify us of a change to your appointment by phoning us on 0408 778 189 or e-mailing us on admin@bloomhealthclinic.au during reception hours (Monday-Friday 8:00am - 5:00pm). If you reach the voicemail service please leave a message and the team will get back to you.
When you provide more than 48-hours notice for cancelling or rescheduling from your session start time, you will not be charged for the appointment. If your notice is given by sending a sms or e-mail, the time stamp on the message will let us know that it was sent 48 hours in advance.
Please note that our automated SMS’s with your appointment reminders are one-way only. Thus if you need to chat with us directly, please use the contact methods noted above.
Cancellation Policy and Appointment Reminders
You are advised of our cancellation policy frequently
When you book your initial appointment
In your appointment confirmation emails
In the email appointment reminders
In all SMS reminders
It is on our website
It is displayed in clinic
We also endeavour to provide frequent reminders of your upcoming sessions.
In order to remind you of your upcoming appointment, your clinician will confirm your next scheduled appointment at the end of each session. Additionally, you will receive an updated appointment schedule via e-mail each time a new appointment is booked. An email reminder will be sent 4 business days before your session so that you have ample time to cancel or reschedule without being responsible for the session fee. Additionally, we have set up a text reminder 2 business days before your session.
Although Bloom Health Clinic provides you with several reminder messages in the lead up to each of your upcoming appointments, it is your responsibility to manage your appointment times and notify the clinic if you are unable to attend an appointment. Please do not rely on our reminders as these are a courtesy only and system errors can occur.
Does Bloom Waive Cancellation Fees Ever?
Of course! We understand that life can be unpredictable and you may need to cancel an appointment within the 48 hour window due to unexpected personal circumstances. In this case we ask that you contact Bloom as soon as possible so we can inform your clinician and attempt to fill your session. Extenuating personal circumstances will be taken into consideration when deciding if a cancellation fee applies.
We have many clients who rarely cancel and when they do due to genuine emergency or unexpected personal circumstances, we will of course (at our discretion) waiver this fee. In addition, we do not want to penalise anyone for being sick, nor do we do not want you to have drag yourself to therapy when you are unwell. For this reason, if you are unwell, we offer telehealth as an alternative to cancelling your session and attracting a cancelation fee. If for some reason you do not want to attend a telehealth session or are unable to inform us of your illness before the 48 hour cancelation window Bloom reserves the right to charge a cancelation fee as per our cancelation policy.
However, the most important thing to remember around cancellations is that when you frequently cancel a therapy session, you are reducing the likelihood that your therapy will be effective. In most cases, effective therapeutic intervention requires consistency (at least for some period of time). Like learning a musical instrument, you could not expect to attend 2 lessons, not go back for 4 weeks, have your third lesson and then maybe your next lesson 6 weeks later and still expect to play that instrument as well as someone who had regularly fortnightly lessons. Therapy is no different. When someone has frequent cancellations, our therapists find themselves repeating skills and interventions each session without progressing beyond these.
Bloom’s Cancellation Policy Implementation Process
Any Cancellations made between 0-48 hours or DNA’s will trigger cancellation fees that will be due immediately (i.e., your credit card/debit will be charged/processed at the time of your cancellation or DNA).
When recovering Cancellation or DNA fees, we kindly ask that you work with us in this regard, as it will help, not only on how we can support you moving forward regarding your ongoing Treatment, but also to enable this difficult process to be dealt with as smoothly and as effectively as possible; for you as our valued client, for your Psychologist, for our Administrators and then of course for any clients who are urgently waiting for an appointment with your psychologist.
If your selected Credit/Debit Card or Bank Deposit funds are not received, or fail to be processed at the time of your non-attendance, you will have 5 full business days after the date of your appointment to deposit these funds (till 5pm of that due date)
If we do not receive these funds 5 full business days after your appointment (by 5pm of the 5th business day) the invoice will be considered overdue and will incur a $22.00 (inc. GST) administration fee in addition to the cost of the overdue payment. Please note, for clients who consistently pay invoices late, payment will be required in advance of future appointments. To learn more about our overdue billing process please click here.
If two appointments are cancelled/or are DNA in succession, this will trigger your next appointment booked with us to be paid 48 hours (2 full business days before) before your next scheduled/booked appointment.
Please be aware that if you cancel an appointment from 48 hours to up to your appointment, or are a DNA appointment, that by signing the Client Intake Form, you’re giving us permission to process your nominated credit/debit card or send you an invoice immediately if for some reason your Credit Card is not successfully processed.
If there are issues regarding your Cancelled or DNA appointment that need to be discussed regarding what happened, we ask that you please put this in writing and e-mail our clinic at admin@bloomhealthclinic.au to review and respond to.
Please note that if you agree to engage in our service, you have read, understood and signed an informed consent to our policies.