Extras Health Insurance & Counselling

Hi, looking to hear from anyone who has experience claiming counselling on Extras policies.

My partner and I are both attending counselling on a fortnightly/weekly basis. Unfortunately thanks to the cutback on Medicare rebated sessions we only get 10 rebated sessions a year (which cover less than half the cost anyway!). We took out a top level extras policy with Medibank earlier this year to help cover the costs once we run out of Medicare sessions. Unfortunately when trying to claim we’ve just found out only one of our counsellors are covered by Medibank - we both see different counsellors at the same clinic and both are registered under Medicare but only the one registered as a ‘psychologist’ is covered. The other is a mental health social worker and apparently her services aren’t covered which is baffling to me because they are providing the same service and both are recognised by Medicare.

Changing provider is not an option as it takes so long to find a good counsellor and build a rapport. I’ve asked around a few funds to see if any cover counselling by social workers and so far only Bupa have confirmed they do but their sub limits for mental health are so low it may not be worth taking out a policy with them. Does anyone know of any other funds I might have missed?

Comments

  • +1

    Could you potentially switch to your employer's Employee Assistance Program psychologists as an alternative?

    • Was about to suggest this ^
      When i looked into counselling/therapy this was the cheapest and easiest way piggy backing off work because at the end of the day it all relates back to it.

    • We tried them before we found our current practice and didn’t have a good experience unfortunately.

  • Medibank Corporate Highest Tier Extras
    Can use $1500 of extras in any area including Psychology
    In the "employer name" just start typing and choose a random employer (they don't check it)

    • That’s the one we’re on now! But they won’t cover counselling by a mental health social worker which is frustrating.

  • "Counsellors must be registered with Australian Counselling Association, Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, Australian Traditional Medicine Society"
    https://www.medibank.com.au/health-support/mental-health/usi…

    • Yeah, I found that already. I don’t think that’s actually how they qualify what services they cover though because my psychologist isn’t a member of any of those orgs, but her services are covered by Medibank. It seems Medibank gets provider numbers directly from Medicare, they’ve just decided not to cover mental health social workers even though they provide the same service as psychologists.

    • A Counsellor, Psycholigist and Social Worker are all different professions with differing professional registrations. I think you are confusing the situation by thinking anyone who offers therapy is a counsellor.

      Social Workers come under AASW who have long been lobbying for Social Workers to be covered by private health. They have a statement explaining your issue here https://ao.aasw.asn.au/social-policy-advocacy/private-health….

      It's also worth noting that a CDM/EPC from your GP can get you another 5 appointments with a Medicare rebate as Social Workers fall under the mental health worker category. Psychologists are also covered in your partners case.

      • Thank you for this, yes it is confusing! I assumed when we took out the policy that when it said counselling was covered, that it would be covered when provided by anyone registered under Medicare to provide counselling. It wasn’t very clear that this wasn’t the case.

        The link you provided is helpful as it answers my original question - only Teachers Fund and Bupa recognise MHSWs. As we can’t join Teachers Fund and the coverage for mental health by Bupa is too low to be worth considering for us, I think we will just try extract as much value as we can from our current policy and then cancel it. We would be better off dropping our insurance altogether (including hospital which was only possible for us to afford if it was offset by the rebates from extras), and just paying for everything OOP. Maybe we’ll consider a cheap standalone extras policy just for dental.

  • Hi,

    Have a look to see if your Social Worker is listed on:

    https://www.talked.com.au/social-worker

    If so, you can see what Funds offer Cover (if any) by Selecting "How to Pay" and what Funds are on board.

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