Attendance & Cancellation Policy

At Words in Motion Speech Pathology, our goal is to provide high quality speech therapy services for all clients. In order to do so, we have in place an attendance and cancellation policy.

This policy enables us to best utilize our available clinical time to provide a high standard of service for all our families.

Attending an Appointment

We encourage you to arrive to your appointment in a timely fashion. This assists us as we strive for professionalism and timely service delivery to you at all times.

If you arrive late to your session without prior notice, we may be unable to see you due to room and timetable bookings. Your therapist may be able to accommodate a shorter session but you will still be billed at the full fee.

Cancellation of an Appointment

If you need to cancel or reschedule an upcoming appointment, we require that you call us at least 48 hours prior to your scheduled appointment time.

How to Cancel Your Appointment

All cancellations need to be directed to our admin team, not your therapist.

To cancel an appointment please call our practice manager, Carrie, on 9217 6423.

Out of office hours, or in times where we may not be able to take your call straight away, you can leave us a voicemail message which is time stamped.

We will call you back, or send a follow up SMS, to confirm that we have received your message.

We do NOT accept cancellations via email.

Late Cancellation Fees

If you cancel your session with less than 48 hours notice, or do not attend your session at all, a 100% cancellation fee will be charged.

This cancellation fee will be charged to your credit card, your NDIS Plan Manager or sent to you via an invoice.

We ask that this fee is paid within 7 days of the missed appointment.

What if my child is unwell?

As a general rule of thumb we suggest a “no school/kinder, no session” approach, i.e. if your child is not well enough for school they are likely not well enough to attend a session either. This assists us in keeping our staff healthy so that they can provide a consistent and regular service to you.

Given that we are a practice providing services for children, we ask for particular consideration with regards to sickness or conditions that are contagious (e.g. head lice, hand foot and mouth etc.). Please do not come, or bring your child, to the office with a fever, strep, unidentified rash, diarrhoea, vomiting or any other highly contagious illness. You and your child must be fever-free for 24 hours prior to the session. If you or your child arrives ill, you may need to be dismissed from the session and charges still apply.

If your child is not able to come into the clinic but is well enough to participate in a session, we may be able to provide a telehealth (online) session instead.

If your child is not able to participate in an online session we may be able to use their scheduled session time for other indirect clinical services, such as a phone consultation with you, email or phone contact with their school/kinder/other therapy providers, home program or resource development, letter or report writing.

Emergency cancellations

We understand that occasionally an urgent or unpredictable event, such as medical emergency, accident, or a family situation, may make it impossible to cancel your appointment 48 hours prior. In these rare circumstances we would consider the cancellation to be an exception to the late cancellation policy.

Emergency cancellations may be accepted for a sudden accident or illness of the client or family member or death in the family. We ask that where possible these sessions are cancelled before 9:00am on the day of the appointment by calling reception and leaving a voicemail message which will be time stamped.

Minimum attendance requirements 

Consistency is key when it comes to achieving outcomes in therapy. Regular attendance of scheduled appointments is important to assist in meeting your child’s therapy goals. Missed  appointments and recurring cancellations result in a reduction in frequency of therapy, which has an adverse impact on outcomes.

At WIM we aim  for an attendance rate of at least 75% of scheduled appointments per term. This is in consideration of both  you and your child and the outcomes we hope to achieve in therapy, as well as other children and  families we have waiting to commence therapy. If consistent attendance proves to be difficult we  ask that you please discuss this with your therapist, or our clinic manager. Frequent cancellations /  an attendance rate below 75% will result in a review of your file. We will then contact you to discuss  future appointments if an agreement is not already in place. A break from therapy may be  discussed, to resume at a time where consistent attendance is more achievable. 

Thank you for your understanding and for working with us to ensure the best outcomes for all children accessing our service.