Then this will interest you.

We are concerned that with the frozen Medicare rebates and the inevitable widening gap fees, our chronic disease patients may not present for care regularly, because of the financial burden. And that may mean your chronic disease is not receiving optimal management.

So we are introducing bulk billed consultations at 3 month intervals to have your chronic disease reviewed. Your initial consult will involve a care plan and a review of that disease management can be bulk billed every 3 months.

Consultations for other reasons, or consultations prior to the 3 month internal will be charged at the normal rate.

Speak to your GP or Practice manager Sue to see if you qualify for a GP chronic disease care plan, and if you do, then book an appointment soon to get started.

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Successful weight loss involves changing habits around unhealthy eating and/or insufficient activity. Dieticians and exercise physiologists are available to assist you to change. In many cases we are eating the right things, but more then we need for our sedentary life styles.

The post Weight Management appeared first on Mariemont Surgery.

With respect to asthma, we urge everyone to have a current asthma action plan as these have been shown to reduce hospital admissions. If you don’t have one, ask your doctor next time you are in, and please bring all your puffers etc with you, for clarification.

The post Chronic Disease and Asthma appeared first on Mariemont Surgery.

A Flu Vaccination is recommended in autumn to allow time for immunity to be strengthened before the flu season starts

Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is caused by two types of viruses in humans (Influenza A and B) which spreads easily from person to person through infected droplets in the air and by hands carrying the virus.

The flu virus infects your nose, throat and sometimes your lungs. It differs from a cold as symptoms such as fever, sore throat and muscle aches develop suddenly and last about a week. In some cases severe illness and complications such as pneumonia and bronchitis can develop resulting in hospitalisation and/or death.

Flu can also make some underlying medical conditions worse. There is a need to get vaccinated every year because the viruses circulating in the community continually change and immunity from the vaccine does not last a long time.

Further health problems can develop in some people after infection with influenza including pneumonia, heart, blood system and liver complications, which can lead to death, especially in children and older people. Children with severe egg allergy should not receive the vaccine and discuss this with their immunisation provider.

Influenza is a vaccine preventable disease, but vaccines need to be given each year, because the viruses are always changing. Under the Immunise Australia Program influenza vaccination is recommended as part of routine vaccinations for Older Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people over 15 years of age, pregnant women and individuals aged 6 months and over with medical conditions predisposing to severe influenza.

The post Winter Fluvax appeared first on Mariemont Surgery.

However, bowel cancer screening is still not being performed optimally.

Screening using an immunochemical faecal occult blood test (FOBT) is recommended every 1-2 years for people aged 50 or over.

Of the 274 cases diagnosed each week 78 people die from the disease. If caught in time, 90% of bowel cancer cases can be treated successfully. If pre cancer polyps or adenomas are detected and removed, bowel cancer can be prevented. It is too late to wait for obvious rectal bleeding, change in bowel habit or anaemia and this is why the screening for microscopic blood is so important. Performing the FOBT every 2 years will reduce deaths due to bowel cancer by 15 to 33%.

If you have a family history of bowel cancer then we recommend colonoscopy from 50 or 10 years younger than the age of the diagnosis in your relative.

The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program will be sending out kits to those Australians turning 50, 55 or 65 years of age between July 2011 and 31/12/2014 and we encourage all our patients to do this and copy us in on the results so we can act if the test is positive for blood. However, those not in this age group and those who have previously completed the FOBT as part of the National Program will not be eligible and so we will arrange testing for this group.

No medicine rebate is available if it is purely for screening purposes.

For more information visit www.bowelcanceraustralia.org

The post Don’t sit on your symptoms – Find out about Bowel Cancer appeared first on Mariemont Surgery.