My partner has had really bad back pain for a long time now and would really, really appreciate a referral to either a chiro or physio as my understanding is that through Medicare a GP can enable you to have 5 free visits for a chronic issue.
As much as we would love to just pay for sessions, we cannot afford it. I don't see a GP often because in my experience they are not particularly helpful beyond being a gateway to refer you to someone who is specialised in your issue.
We went to our local GP where we've been a handful of times who refused to help because her back pain is "not a chronic disease" despite her being in crippling pain from just a 20 minute walk for several years now and she is only in her early twenties. I spoke to a friend of mine who is a chiropractor who said GPs are hesitant to write these referrals because it's a lot of paperwork for them and they generally can't be bothered unless you've seen them for a very long time, which leaves us with no real option because we'd need to find a new GP and thus be a brand new patient which makes them unlikely to give us said referral (the most our GP was willing to give us was a hand written note saying "pls treat this patient for back pain" which is effectively worthless).
So, my ask is does anyone know a good GP who would be willing to write one of these Medicare program referrals for us? Note that we are currently in the St George area, but my partner works in the CBD so anywhere between there would be great but given how hard this is to get we would be willing to travel.
(Apologies if CDM is the wrong term, Chronic Disease Management, maybe it's under something else).
Also apologies if this is the wrong category…it is a 'freebie' of sorts so it didn't feel correct under off-topic