Mental Health Care Plan Fees

At present, clients referred with a Mental Health Care Plan (MHCP) will be Bulk Billed for eligible services.

Eligibility for this scheme is based on the diagnosis given by your GP and is not income tested. Most common disorders are eligible. These include anxiety, depression, panic attacks, sleep problems and adjustment disorders but it does not include marriage counseling. Up to 10 individual sessions with a psychologist can be claimed in a twelve-month period.

Medicare Rebated sessions can be accessed:

– Visit your GP and discuss your concerns;- If your GP believes you are eligible and would benefit from seeing a psychologist they will complete a GP Mental Health Care Plan with you and you can request that they make a referral to Reverse Psychology;
– Progress will be reviewed with your GP after your first six psychologist sessions. After this, you can then claim your additional four sessions if they are required.

Please remember to bring your Medicare card to the sessions.See www.medicareaustralia.gov.au for more information.

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Employee Assistance Program

Clients may also be seen under an Employee Assistance Program. However, the terms and conditions of the therapy would need to be established sometime prior to the sessions with your employer. The amount of sessions is often less than the number available via Medicare and billing arrangements are predetermined in these circumstances.

Workcover, Comcare, CTP or Private Compensation

Clients who have approved Workcover, Comcare, CTP or Private Compensation Insurance Claims can be referred to a simple referral and the appropriate agency will be billed directly when possible, as long as there is an approved claim. These fees are often set by the agency or the Worker’s Compensation Regulatory Authority (Q-Comp).

Assessments and Reports

Fees for private assessments and reports will need to be negotiated. Please remember that when I quote you a fee, I have to take into consideration the time required to write the report and possible time away from the practice to cover my losses if I have to appear in court. Clients who are seen by court order via an MHCP need to be aware that under Medicare, I am only required to write to your GP at the conclusion of session 1, 6, or 10 and/or at the termination of therapy.

If you require a report for court or some other reason, it would fall in the private report criteria due to the extra work involved and this would need to be negotiated. You need to be aware that reports for court or parole may include a section that details the client’s attendance rate, attitude towards therapy, attitude towards the therapist and application of the therapy to the real world.

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Non-Attendance Fee

This is a private practice, not a free clinic and there are no government grants to help keep the doors open. Medicare fees are not that high and practitioners are not paid for missed appointments, while the overheads to operate the practice keep escalating. We will often book a number of appointments in advance for clients when the initial appointment is made (for times that are mutually acceptable) and the practice will allow a number of rescheduling of these appointments if circumstances change (with greater than 24 hours notice). As a mater of necessity to keep the doors open the following policy was introduced some time ago.

If an appointment is not attended or the practice is not given 24 hours notice. All future appointments may be cancelled, the missed session would need to be paid for a deposit equal to the payment that would have been received will be required.

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Contact Us

Please note, our email system is only monitored during
office hours, Monday to Friday. If you need to make an
appointment or have an urgent enquiry, please phone
(07) 3818 1356.