Person walks into a Medicare Mental Health Centre

No appointment, no referral, no treatment plan, no fee. The same government, in the same portfolio, in the same year, built the opposite of Better Access — and the only constraint is whether one exists near you.

healthAn adult seeking mental health support at a free walk-in centre draft compare across jurisdictions

4 days elapsed
longest dependent chain

4 discrete steps
across 0 bodies

0% waiting on availability
scheduling or queue, not assessment

0 days saved by concurrency
vs. 4 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.

third party	3d	Waiting on an external body outside the regulator's control.
assessment	1d	Someone is genuinely evaluating the merits.
applicant	0d	Waiting on the applicant to supply or fix something.

The process, step by step

Applies when: A person seeks mental health support and a Medicare Mental Health Centre operates within reach.

#	Step	Who	Why it waits	Clock	Typical	Basis
1	Find a centre within reach application Whether one exists nearby is the whole of the eligibility test.	—	third party	—	3 published	—
2	Walk in application No appointment, no referral, no treatment plan. after Find a centre within reach 1d slack	—	applicant	—	0 published	—
3	Assessment and support assessment Assessment, brief intervention, and referral onward where needed. after Walk in	—	assessment	—	1 estimate	—
4	Referral to ongoing therapy where needed referral only if triggered Where a person needs a course of psychological therapy, they enter the Better Access pathway. Triggered when: The person needs ongoing psychological therapy rather than brief intervention. after Assessment and support	—	third party	—	14 estimate	—

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

Proposed changes

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

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing: Medicare Mental Health Centres are free walk-in services with no appointment needed; 92 to open by 2027
21 locations across New South Wales, used by more than 37,000 people and families

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-medicare-mental-health-centre.toml and open a pull request, or send us the correction.