The Better Access to Mental Health Care program was launched in 2006 and allowed people suffering from mental health conditions to receive psychological support through the Medicare system (Mullings, 2015). The Better Access program resulted in a two-tiered Medicare rebate system that saw clinical psychologists receiving higher Medicare rebates of $124.50, in comparison to general registered psychologists, who received a Medicare rebate of $84.80 (Meteyard & O'hara, 2015). This two tiered Medicare rebate system arose due to both clinical psychologists and the Australian Psychology Society (APS) stressing concerns about the limited training that different medical practitioners in psychology (such as general psychologists or counselling psychologists) received in regards to psychological therapies (Mullings, 2015).
The APS state that the upper part of the tier should only include services provided by clinical psychologists because they possess the skills necessary to treat psychological and psychiatric disorders, and hence believe that the two-tiered structure should be maintained (The Australian Psychological Society, 2011). This is …show more content…
They are also required to have supervised experience after completing six years of study (The Australian Psychological Society, 2011). Thus, both the APS and many clinical psychologists believe that it would be unacceptable to see a reduction in fees due to the furthered training required to become a clinical psychologist. They believe that the 4 years a general psychologist does, does not give them the same skills that clinical psychologists have in rapidly and efficiently assessing and treating complex psychological problems (The Australian Psychological Society,
The APS state that the upper part of the tier should only include services provided by clinical psychologists because they possess the skills necessary to treat psychological and psychiatric disorders, and hence believe that the two-tiered structure should be maintained (The Australian Psychological Society, 2011). This is …show more content…
They are also required to have supervised experience after completing six years of study (The Australian Psychological Society, 2011). Thus, both the APS and many clinical psychologists believe that it would be unacceptable to see a reduction in fees due to the furthered training required to become a clinical psychologist. They believe that the 4 years a general psychologist does, does not give them the same skills that clinical psychologists have in rapidly and efficiently assessing and treating complex psychological problems (The Australian Psychological Society,