What finding ADHD care actually looks like, and what we changed.

01 Where it starts

You search, and no GP comes back.

Type “ADHD GP near me” and you get directories, sponsored clinics, telehealth start-ups and psychiatry waiting lists. Almost none of it is a GP near you who assesses ADHD.

• No booking site has a filter for it
• The ads are for the expensive route
• Half the results are not in your state

02 So you go looking

Then you read the doctors one at a time.

You open a practice page and work down the list, one GP at a time, looking for the word. Usually it is not there. The profile says “special interests” and lists skin checks and travel medicine, and you are still guessing.

• Practice pages list doctors, not what they do
• Reception often cannot say either
• There is no public register of who has done the training
• The one GP who does it is not taking new patients

03 The part nobody answers

None of it answers what you want to ask.

Even when a name finally looks plausible, the page is silent on everything that decides whether this GP is right for you. You book, take the day off, and find out in the room.

• Will they take me seriously?
• Will they think I’m after something?
• Do they know how this looks in women?
• Will they understand my family, my language?
• Do I need school reports? I don’t have any.
• Will I forget what I meant to say?

04 Money, time, distance

How far, how long, how much.

The questions that decide whether you go at all are the ones nobody publishes. You ring and ask, or you turn up and find out.

• Can I get there without a car?
• Is a fifteen-minute appointment enough for this?
• Can I take another day off work?
• Is it bulk billed, or is there a gap?

05 What the old route cost

The wait was never the care.

Before the rule changed, the route ran through a queue with no visible end and a bill most people could not plan for. None of the waiting made the care better. It only made it later.

• Time off work
• A referral to chase
• Telling the whole story to somebody new

6–12 months is a typical wait for an adult ADHD assessment appointment; $1k to $5k is a common out-of-pocket cost of a private adult assessment. Both indicative, pending source confirmation.

06 What changed

The rule is changing in NSW and QLD.

GPs with the right training can now carry the whole pathway rather than only refer it onward. Psychiatry stays available for the complex cases. The queue stops being the default.

ADHD.ME lists the GPs who have done that training. Every one of them is a GP; ADHD is not a specialty on the register, and nobody here claims otherwise.

07 What ADHD.ME is

How it works, end to end.

The permission already changed. Acting on it is the part that was missing. Three steps.

• Say what you need, in your words. Not a quiz, and not a score.
• See who is near you, by suburb, care area and language.
• Book the first appointment with one GP who carries it through.

08 The one action

One GP, from the first appointment to the follow-up.

Nobody should have to tell their story twice to get through a door. One clinician holds the assessment, the medication and the follow-up, and what they wrote down in the first appointment is still there in the fourth.

You book with the practice on Healthengine, where the live times are. ADHD.ME does not see your booking.