Readers should be aware that the authors above never miss an opportunity to make critical commentary about the Better Access program. Ian Hickie for example was doing the rounds in radio interviews criticizing this program before it had launched (https://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1602036.htm). For well over a decade now, Sebastian Rosenberg has been publishing alarmist stories (often in Croakey) about the cost per week of including access to psychological care in the Medicare system (https://drben.com.au/d/ten.pdf). The article above is just another example and more of the same.

Further, this article incorrectly claims that those calling for more sessions in Medicare miss the point that people living with some mental health conditions, like eating disorders, may achieve better results with integrative centre-based systems of care. Nobody is making that claim. It’s a straw-man argument.

The key issue about the number of sessions is that ten sessions falls well below accepted levels of care. We should remember that it was Ian Hickie and Pat McGorry who misled the senate inquiry in 2011 that the Medicare system should be capped at just ten sessions of therapy (https://twitter.com/BenMullingsPhD/status/1287231031863422977/photo/1). It was on their advice that the program was scaled back, which resulted in further fragmentation and public confusion about how to access psychological care. Dr Aaron T. Beck invented cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) which is the main brief intervention used in the Medicare scheme. He recently passed away at the ripe old age of 100 years, but thankfully a few years ago he wrote a letter to our politicians here in Australia stating that optimal treatment for depression often requires “up to 24 visits” (https://drben.com.au/docs/Beck_04-03-14.pdf). The central issue here is about helping people access psychotherapy for long enough to attain good results. Access to basic standards of psychological care via Medicare is a sensible public investment.