Mental Health Care Plan

A mental health treatment plan can provide an extensive range of benefits to you. These plans usually provide you with extra support and faster access to support services, such as a referral to a specialist, medication, and strategies to improve and maintain your mental health! What makes it even better is if you have a mental health treatment plan, you will be entitled to Medicare rebates for up to 20 individual psychological appointments per calendar year. This gives you access to psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors, occupational therapists and social workers. This means you can get your mental health checked upon with little to no financial burden. 

It also gives you a range of goals that set a benchmark for showing mental health improvement. These goals can vary a lot depending on the condition or diagnosis. For example, an anxiety goal could be to increase the amount of social contact a person makes. A goal for depression could be to have improved happiness. These goals can help you and your doctor identify what to achieve, how to get there and if you have achieved that goal. If you haven’t, maybe more support is needed. And if you have, maybe less medication or support is needed. Of course, this all depends on the diagnosis and what your doctor thinks is appropriate for you. 

Extra Support

There are some other ways to get support if you can’t get a mental health treatment plan in time. 

Seeing a social worker can be a great way to get support. Social workers can help you with short term counselling and referrals to more support services. You can talk to a social worker about;

• Family and domestic violence
• Thoughts of suicide or self-harm
• Being a young person without support
• A personal or family crisis
• Mental health concerns
• A natural disaster and how it’s affected you.

To contact a social worker, you can either:

• Call the Centrelink employment services line and ask to speak to a social worker
• Visit a service centre and ask to speak to a social worker.

This service can help give you the courage to get a mental health treatment plan or just provide some well-needed support. 

Furthermore, you can also access  support services;

• If you’re in crisis and need support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. They’re open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Lifeline website also has helpful information on crisis support and suicide prevention.
• If you’re between the ages of 5 and 25, you can call the kids helpline on 1800 551 800. They’re open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They offer a phone counselling service. The kid’s helpline website also has helpful information for kids, teenagers, young adults and parents.

Need something else? You can also find a list of mental health programs on the Department of Health website.