The scheme is a key component of health care in Australia and aims to improve the treatment and management of mental illness within the Australian community.
[1][2][3] The introduction of the Better Access scheme has provided over 30 million individual treatment services for Australians with mental health disorders since its inception.
[14][15] In November 2017, the Australian Government announced $9.1 million in funding to improve access to mental health treatment services for people in regional, rural and remote areas.
Psychiatrist Ian Hickie has raised concerns over the scheme, stating that giving psychologists Medicare rebates risks turning the profession into a “cottage industry”.
[25] Hickie has previously advocated that multidisciplinary teams are the best way to deliver higher-quality mental health care and for the Better Access scheme to be capped at 10 sessions per calendar year.
[26] Sebastian Rosenberg, Senior Lecturer at the Brain and Mind Centre, has also been critical of the reduced oversight of General Practitioners in the scheme, suggesting “GPs have allowed their role in Better Access to dwindle to that of glorified referrers”.
[27] The Brain and Mind Centre has estimated the cost of expanding access to the scheme at $2 billion and has suggested funding for mental health services could be better spent elsewhere.
[30][31] A prominent concern of the Better Access initiative is its limited distribution of mental health care to rural, regional and remote areas.
The AASW has argued that the existing title may mislead clients into assuming that Medicare rebateable services are only provided by Psychiatrists, Psychologists and General Practitioners under the initiative.