What are the doctor’s note rules in Australia?

A medical Certificate or doctor’s note is the most common document GPs give to their patients. Some Medical Certificates say that a person cannot work for some time due to illness. Some certificates excuse children from attending school. There are more complicated Medical Certificates helping people to get housing or get away from paying fines.

Most patients ask for a doctor’s note to stay home and recover from some illness.

Generally, Medical Certificates exempt patients from going to work from the day of the appointment. What if a patient asks for a backdated certificate? Often people cannot get a GP appointment on the same day. What if you were sick for three days and got to see a GP only on day three? Usually, a GP would look at the patient’s illness and decide how likely it would be there for three days. If you called your GP clinic and did not get an appointment on the same day, ask Reception to note that you called. This will be the evidence that you were seeking an appointment earlier. If GP doubts that you were sick three days ago, you can point out the note left in your file by the Receptionist.

If you made your appointment online (just like the practice here), the computer program would note the time of when the appointment was made automatically. This also proves that you were sick for a while before seeing a GP.

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