Paying the price – out-of-pocket payments for mental health care in Australia
Sebastian Rosenberg A * , Shin Ho Park A and Ian Hickie AA Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney, 94 Mallett Street, Camperdown, NSW 2050, Australia.
Australian Health Review 46(6) 660-666 https://doi.org/10.1071/AH22154
Submitted: 22 June 2022 Accepted: 30 September 2022 Published: 27 October 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of AHHA. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Objective This study set out to present data on out-of-pocket payments for Medicare mental health services provided by general practitioners (GP), psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and other psychologists, to explore how much is spent on out-of-pocket payments for mental health; if any trends could be seen; and what variations exist across regions.
Methods We performed secondary analysis of publicly available data on Medicare-subsidised GP, allied health and specialist health care across Australia. We merged and interrogated data covering the period 2013–19 and 2019–21 to create a data set covering eight full years of Medicare mental health services, arranged by profession and by region.
Results Out-of-pocket payments for mental health care in Australia have been rising consistently over the period 2013–21, at a considerably faster rate than overall expenditure on mental health care. There is wide variation in out-of-pocket payments depending on where you live.
Conclusions The impact of out-of-pocket payments on community access to mental health care is growing. This has implications, especially in poorer communities, for access to care. This should be an important consideration taken as the Australian Government considers next steps in national mental health reform, including the Better Access Program, currently under evaluation.
Keywords: access, Australia, Better Access Program, equity, Medicare, mental health, out-of-pocket payments.
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