Person obtains Medicare-rebated psychological therapy

Three gates before a first session: a GP appointment, a treatment plan, and either a gap fee or a six to sixteen week wait for someone who bulk bills. Ten sessions a calendar year, with a review at six.

healthAn adult seeking psychological therapy under Better Access with a GP Mental Health Treatment Plan draft compare across jurisdictions

282 days elapsed
longest dependent chain

7 discrete steps
across 1 bodies

7% waiting on availability
scheduling or queue, not assessment

0 days saved by concurrency
vs. 282 if run end-to-end

Where the time goes

Critical-path days only. Steps that run alongside others are real work but do not lengthen the process, so counting them here would overstate the prize.

statutory	180d	A legislated period that must elapse regardless of readiness.
third party	74d	Waiting on an external body outside the regulator's control.
scheduling	21d	Waiting for a person or committee to become available.
assessment	7d	Someone is genuinely evaluating the merits.

21 of 282 elapsed days are spent waiting for a person or a meeting rather than for a judgement to be formed. Removing that time changes no assessment standard and lowers no bar -- it is the cost of scheduling alone.

The process, step by step

Applies when: A person seeks Medicare-rebated sessions with a psychologist.

#	Step	Who	Why it waits	Clock	Typical	Basis
1	Obtain a GP appointment application A consultation long enough to prepare a Mental Health Treatment Plan.	—	third party	—	14 estimate	—
2	GP prepares a Mental Health Treatment Plan certification The plan is the referral instrument. Without it there is no rebate. after Obtain a GP appointment 261d slack	—	assessment	—	7 published	—
3	Find a psychologist with capacity application after GP prepares a Mental Health Treatment Plan 201d slack	—	third party	—	60 reported	—
4	Pay the gap, or wait for bulk billing fee The rebate is $141.85 for a clinical psychologist and $96.65 for a registered psychologist. after Find a psychologist with capacity 201d slack	—	assessment	—	0 published	—
5	Up to ten sessions in a calendar year assessment Ten individual and ten group sessions per calendar year. after Pay the gap, or wait for bulk billing 21d slack	—	statutory	—	180 published	—
6	Return to the GP for a review certification A review is required before further sessions can be claimed. after Up to ten sessions in a calendar year	—	scheduling	—	21 estimate	—
7	Commonwealth-state agreement renegotiated decision only if triggered The National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement, which sets the framework the states deliver under. Triggered when: The agreement reaches its expiry and must be renegotiated. after GP prepares a Mental Health Treatment Plan	Department of Health, Disability and Ageing	scheduling	—	365 published	—

on the critical path scheduling/queue = delay not caused by the assessment itself

Proposed changes

A service cannot plan against an eleven-month agreement resequence
The Commonwealth contribution to adult public dental runs from 14 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 — under twelve months, for $107.76 million — and is the latest in a series of short agreements stretching back to 2013. Short funding buys short commitments, and short commitments buy extractions.
A person in distress must first obtain a different appointment to be allowed to pay for the one they need remove ~42d
Better Access requires a GP Mental Health Treatment Plan before any rebated psychology session, and a return visit for review before the later sessions. Eighty-one days elapse before a first session. The same government runs walk-in centres that require none of it.
The better-designed instrument already exists inside the same government threshold ~278d
A Medicare Mental Health Centre requires no appointment, no referral, no plan and no fee, and models at 4 days. Better Access models at 282. The constraint on the first is that only 92 will exist by 2027.

Sources

Better Access: up to 10 individual and 10 group sessions per calendar year with a referral or plan from a GP, psychiatrist or paediatrician
2026 Medicare rebates: $141.85 per session for a clinical psychologist, $96.65 for a registered psychologist
Reported bulk-billed psychology waitlists of 6 to 16 weeks; most practices charge a gap fee because the rebate covers only part of the fee
National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement expiring 30 June 2026, extended by one year; Productivity Commission review found the Agreement is not effective, final report tabled 11 November 2025

Something wrong here?

This page is wrong in some way -- every page like it is. If you have run this process, the most useful thing you can do is tell us which step took longer than we say and why. Edit data/processes/au-better-access.toml and open a pull request, or send us the correction.