A mental health treatment plan is a plan created together with your GP, to support you if you are suffering with mental illness. It will help you to access and coordinate your treatment, as well as providing information on additional supports and services, and the steps to take if your condition deteriorates suddenly.

In most cases, when people attend their GP to discuss a mental health treatment plan, they are interested in getting a referral to a mental health professional (usually a psychologist) as part of this plan, to enable access to lower cost therapy sessions.

If you have a valid mental health care plan, the Australian Government will pay some or all of the cost of up to 10 sessions with a psychologist/mental health professional per calendar year. In this case, the psychologist you’ve been referred to will be able to give you a Medicare Rebate for those sessions, to reduce your out-of-pocket cost.

Working on your mental health with a therapist takes time, and usually requires many appointments over months or years- so a mental health treatment plan is a good way to reduce the financial impact of getting the help you need.