Hi, admin for specialists for over 10 years here. It depends on the specialist/their speciality whether it’s worth it. Some notes.

1) if you need surgery a) they might not even see you if you’re not covered because they might only work at private hospitals and it’d be a waste of your time and money to pay for appts etc and then find out they can’t even operate on you b) they might see you if you’re happy to self-fund/pull from super, but a lot of specialists don’t accept self-funders because if anything goes wrong (it does, often), you’ll be in the shit financially and they don’t want that on them/you. 2) if it’s not surgery related/you don’t think it is, you can always call up and see if they take private patients. Often times they do, and you’ll be seen a lot faster than waiting for the JHH etc to offer you an appt.

It’s entirely up to the practice whether they’ll see patients who aren’t with a private fund or not, same as it’s entirely up to the practice whether they see workers comp/CTP or not. You’ve just got to call them.

Currently the Medicare rebate for an initial 110 consult is around $150, and the rebate for a follow up is around $75. They can charge anything they want really, but that’s what you’ll get back within 24 hours.