AAPi President Sahra O'Doherty spoke in detail with The Briefing podcast about the mental health system, why governments are failing and AAPi's solutions to fixing the crisis.
"It has been a really disappointing set of promises from the major parties. We know that Labor is putting a lot of money into these urgent care clinics, which is really just a rebrand of the clinics that had already been available previously in that head to health program. The Liberal Party have decided to promise to up the mental healthcare plan sessions from 10 up to the 20 that were previously available during COVID, which is okay, but it really just doesn't go far enough. Part of what the Australian Association of Psychologists has been campaigning for is really to be investing in what the core of Medicare is, which is making sure that the people who need it are able to access all of the treatment that they are able to get at a cost that is effective for them."
When asked about cost being a major barrier to psychological care, Sahra explained:
"Currently, there is what's known as a two tier Medicare rebate system where a proportion of psychologists are able to offer a higher Medicare rebate. So these are psychologists, only with clinical endorsement and that represents about 30% of all psychologists in Australia. The rest of psychologists, including those with other kinds of endorsements, so things like health endorsement or forensic endorsement, are on this lower tier of a rebate. And that rebate has, in my career, only changed about $12 in the last 10 to 12 years. So the cost is prohibitive. It means that a lot of psychologists, unfortunately, because we're all in the same cost of living crisis, that we can't really bulk bill as much. We desperately want to. But what that means is people are having to ration their sessions or choose between coming and seeing their psychologist or the cost of rented groceries."
On access she said:
"The access issue to mental health support needs to be streamlined. At the moment, a person has to either present to emergency or go and see their GP, and seeing that GP is a cost barrier, there's a time barrier, there's a waiting barrier, in rural and regional areas, there just aren't enough GPs out there to be able to service their communities. Then there has to be a mental healthcare plan, which is put in place, and then the person has to go off and find a psychologist, and just like meeting a new person anywhere, the first psychologist that you try might not be the best one for you, having the mental space and capacity to shop around and find somebody who is able to support you, who has the skills to be able to support you is a really challenging situation for anyone to be in. And so finding more creative ways of streamlining that process, for instance, having self referrals to psychologists, so moving psychology into primary care so that you don't necessarily need a GP's referral to go and access mental health support is definitely one solution. Collaborating with GPs more so that there is less paperwork and bureaucracy to maintain those referrals is definitely another solution. We're absolutely pleading with the government to help us, to help the community more."
The discussion touched on bulk billing, workforce capability, the process of accessing mental health care, psychologist burnout, and the power of early intervention. Listen to the full interview.
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