HealthPathways

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Useful Management Information

  • Consider the following:
    • Speech pathology assessment is warranted if concerned about ‘oropharyngeal’ dysphagic symptoms only

Minimum Referral Criteria

Does your patient meet the minimum referral criteria?
Category 1 (appointment within 30 calendar days)
  • Suspicion of oropharyngeal lesion - dysphagia and any of the following:
    • hoarseness
    • unilateral otalgia
    • progressive weight loss
    • smoking history
    • excessive alcohol intake
  • Significant stenotic/dysphagic symptoms and any of the following:
    • gagging, choking, and/or coughing when swallowing
    • food or liquids coming back up to throat, mouth, and/or nose after swallowing
    • feel like foods or liquids are stuck in throat or chest or problems getting food or liquids to go down on the first attempt
    • oropharyngeal pain or referred pain to ear when swallowing
    • pain or pressure in chest or heartburn
    • weight loss/loss of appetite/food avoidance
    • shortness of breath post eating (in absence of other cause)
  • Recurrent chest infections (aspiration pneumonia)
Category 2 (appointment within 90 calendar days)
  • No category 2 criteria
Category 3 (appointment within 365 calendar days)
  • No criteria 3 criteria

If your patient does not meet the minimum referral criteria

  • Assessment and management information may be found on a range of conditions at HealthPathways
  • If the patient does not meet the criteria for referral but the referring practitioner believes the patient requires specialist review, a clinical override may be requested:
    • Please explain why (e.g. warning signs or symptoms, clinical modifiers, uncertain about diagnosis, etc.)
  • Please note that your referral may not be accepted or may be redirected to another service

Essential Referral Information

  • Neurology history (i.e. history of stroke, progressive neurological disease)
  • Previous history of head/neck oncological treatment

If a specific test result is unable to be obtained due to access, financial, religious, cultural or consent reasons a Clinical Override may be requested. This reason must be clearly articulated in the body of the referral.

Additional Referral Information

  • Videofluoroscopic swallow study (barium swallow or modified barium swallow results)
  • CT neck and chest (with contrast) results
  • CXR results
  • TSH results
Last updated 30 July 2022

Send Referrals To

Smart Referrals

Preferred Method
About Smart Referrals

Secure Web Transfer

Gold Coast Health Service District

Internal Referrals

Fax

(07) 5687 4497

Post

Booking and Referral Centre
Gold Coast University Hospital
1 Hospital Boulevard
Southport QLD 4215

Enquiries

1300 559 083

Related HealthPathways

No directly related pathways found

Service Availability

Dr Jim Hallam
Medical Director Ear, Nose, Throat (ENT)

Facilities

Gold Coast University Hospital

If you would like to send a named referral, please address it to the specialist listed above, who will allocate a suitably qualified specialist to see the patient. Alternatively, you can view a full list of our specialists.

Gold Coast Health - For Clinicians
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