Most people arrive at a first appointment having heard the phrase “mental health care plan” from their GP, a friend, or a community Facebook group, and having very little idea what it actually does. It is worth understanding properly, because it is the single thing that most changes what therapy costs you.

What it is

A Mental Health Treatment Plan is a document your GP puts together with you, in an appointment set aside for that purpose. Medicare's official name for it is a Mental Health Treatment Plan. You will also hear it called a mental health care plan, an MHCP, or just “the plan”, and people use all of those interchangeably.

It is not a diagnosis in any formal sense, and it is not a referral letter of the old kind. It sits somewhere between the two: a short written summary of what you are finding hard, what you would like to be different, and who you are going to work with. Your GP keeps a copy and so do I.

What it gets you

Six rebated sessions to begin with. Once you have used those, you go back to your GP for a review, and that review can release another four. Ten rebated sessions in a calendar year is the ceiling, and the calendar resets on 1 January rather than twelve months from your first appointment.

That review is not a formality, and I would encourage you not to treat it as one. It is a genuinely useful checkpoint. Six sessions in, most people have a much clearer sense of what is actually going on than they did at the start, and it is worth telling your GP that.

What the rebate is worth

The Medicare rebate for a session with a clinical psychologist is currently $141.85. My standard fee is $225 for a fifty-minute session, so the gap you pay is $83.15. You pay the full fee on the day and the rebate comes back to you, usually within a day or two.

You can see the full breakdown, including how private health extras interact with all of this, on the fees page. The short version is that you cannot claim Medicare and private health for the same session, so it is worth checking with your fund which one leaves you better off.

How to get one

Ring your GP clinic and say you would like a longer appointment to talk about a mental health treatment plan. That phrasing matters. A standard consult is not long enough, and reception staff will book you differently if you say it up front.

Bring a rough sense of what has been going on and roughly how long for. You do not need to have it all worked out. If you already know who you want to see, say so, and the plan can be written to me directly.

If the issue is an eating disorder

There is a separate and considerably more generous pathway. An Eating Disorder Management Plan, written by a GP, paediatrician or psychiatrist, covers up to forty psychological sessions and twenty dietetics sessions across twelve months. If you are supporting someone with a diagnosed eating disorder, that is the pathway to ask about rather than the standard plan. I have written more about eating disorder treatment and what it involves.

You do not need one to get started

This is the part people most often get stuck on. A treatment plan affects what you pay. It does not affect whether you can be seen. If getting a GP appointment is going to take three weeks and you would rather start now, you can start now and sort the paperwork out afterwards.

If you are not sure which pathway applies to you, send an enquiry and I will tell you honestly. It is a short answer and there is no charge for asking.