Politicians rely on spin to justify cutting spending on public access to mental health treatment. In the current situation, the Government has relied on a simplistic interpretation of data from the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS). The argument goes that if around 80% of people use less than 6 sessions in Medicare, then this must mean that people with a mental health condition only need 6 sessions to recover. This skewed interpretation of the figures disregards cases where people pull out of treatment early or the many cases where people self-fund a proportion of their treatment. The way the system works is that people receive a GP referral for 6 appointments of Medicare-supported treatment before they need to report back to their GP to have their referral renewed. It is no surprise that the MBS data shows that most patients only access 6 appointments, because those patients who can afford to self fund ongoing treatment continue with therapy without going back to their GP, often with help from private health insurance. Cutting access to treatment in Medicare only hurts those who are most in need of treatment and least able to afford it.

The Government’s own figures from the ANAO and AIHW demonstrate that ATAPS costs more to run. Between 15% and 25% of funds allocated to ATAPS are routinely spent on administrative functions, rather than treatment. Looking at the annual cost of the program and the number of services delivered, there is an average cost of $166.67 per appointment – almost twice the cost of the Better Access initiative. In some cases, this cost has been known to reach as high as $631 per session, which is over 7 times as expensive. One reason why ATAPS costs more to run is that the program has better reach for some niche populations. Medicare and ATAPS work in a complementary fashion so one can’t be traded off against the other, yet that is exactly what the Federal Government has done.