The APS calls for more Medicare funding to address mental health crisis

The Australian Psychological Society (APS) has called for an expansion of Medicare funding to ensure adequate treatment for Australia’s mental health crisis.

In a submission to the Medicare Benefits Scheme Review, currently underway, the APS has called for more sessions under the Better Access to Mental Health Care initiative, which provides access to psychological sessions under Medicare, to ensure adequate treatment for a range of mental health conditions.

“Providing universal mental health care under Better Access has been extremely successful; however, there is strong evidence that many conditions treated under the scheme require more than the allowable maximum ten sessions,” APS CEO Ms Frances Mirabelli said.

As well as calling for more complex conditions to receive more sessions under Medicare, the APS wants a wider range of evidence-based psychological therapies recognised in the system.

OCD, PTSD and eating disorders are among the conditions for which 20 sessions are recommended. 

“Our mental health crisis continues to grow.  We need to be able to treat people with the required number of psychological sessions and with treatments that the evidence supports as most effective. This costs the community far less over the long term,” Ms Mirabelli said.

The APS is also urging Government to fully utilise the broad professionally trained and registered psychology workforce to help meet demand.

“Psychologists are the largest mental health workforce, with a high level of training and regulation.   In order to meet demand and deliver effective treatment we need to utilise all of this highly trained workforce to its maximum capacity,” Ms Mirabelli said.

The APS submission advocates for more psychologists to be able to provide a greater number of services under the scheme.

“At the moment, the rebate model doesn’t reflect the full needs of those with mental health conditions, nor the therapies they require.  It also restricts who can deliver those services.

“Our suggested approach improves the existing system by ensuring that the right psychologist is available to treat a condition with the most effective therapy and that the duration of treatment is supported by the latest evidence,” she said.

NOTES TO EDITORS: 

The submission is available online. 

The APS has recently updated and published, with Government support, an extensive literature review, Evidence-Based Psychological Interventions in the Treatment of Mental Disorders, which supports the proposals in the submission.