PACFA's Courting of Medicare Gets Serious

HypnosisAustralia, May 2007

By Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Psychotherapist & Counsellor
Editorial Director of HypnosisAustralia Online.

The courting of Medicare rebates for PACFA's registrant clients is getting serious. So far the government has been dismissive of PACFA's registrants as not being sufficiently qualified to give rebates to their clients. The two issues that are outstanding are that PACFA has not been having an external audit. PACFA has said that it is now addressing this issue and putting measures in place to make that happen.

The second issue has been that the government has believed that the requirements that PACFA requires for its registrants fall short of the Australian Standards For Mental Health Training Competencies. This is a blanket statement made by the government without knowledge of the trainings of individual registrants on the register. Many registrants will technically meet those levels but PACFA is not presently demonstrating with its registers that they monitor those particular requirements.

When the journal spoke to the PACFA office they indicated that committee members are now looking at how to implement a structure to fulfill those extra training requirements to satisfy the government. There has been talk of bridging courses that PACFA registrants may be able to do in order to fulfill those requirements. Those courses when they are formulated would be accredited by PACFA and would then satisfy the government so that such registrants would meet Medicare Mental Health Training Requirements.

If PACFA is able to pull this off, it will be an incredible step forward for the hypnotherapists that are on the PACFA register. It will be the first time in Australia that the discipline of hypnotherapy would have a Medicare item number and not be an adjunct of another professional service. Although we are talking years here, PACFA has said that it will keep all member organsations and registrants up to date as the process unfurls.

©HypnosisAustralia, May 2007