Many of the clinical services we provide at the CDN are eligible for financial support either from Medicare, or from your Private Health Insurance. The way we bill is that you pay the full CDN service fee, then use the receipt to claim your rebate entitlements.
Medical Services
Medical services at the CDN are provided by specialist Paediatricians. This means that you need a referral from your GP. Each doctor determines their own fee schedule for the services provided.
If you have a current medical referral, you are entitled to standard Medicare rebates for Initial, Follow-Up and Case Conference specialist services.
Psychology Services (for mental health disorders)
The federal government has recently added psychology services to the Medicare schedule if these are provided for what the government classifies as mental health disorders. This means that you can get rebates back from Medicare for some of the clinical services provided by our psychologists.
If you have private health insurance, this may provide financial support for psychological services. You cannot claim rebates from your Private health Insurance AND Medicare for the same service.
The psychological services that Medicare supports are for the assessment and treatment of what they classify as Mental Health Disorders.
To be elibible for these rebates, you need a specific medical referral to our psychologist. This can come from our Paediatricians (if you are already seeing them), another medical specialist, or your GP.
Click here for more information about what is required in these referrals.
Developmental Assessments
Disorders of learning are not classified by the government as mental health problems, so that they are not eligible for the Mental Health rebates from Medicare.
If your child needs assessment, and particulary if they need assessment from more than one professional, there are two ways that you may obtain financial assistance for this - Private Health Insurance and the new Medicare Care Plans. To begin this process, you need to clarify which assessments you need, and which professionals would be doing the assessment.
Find out more about the Medicare Care Plans.
If you wish to use either Private Health Insurance or the Medicare Care Plans to assist paying for these assessments, we recommend you find out how much you get back on each to decide the best way to get financial support. Again, you cannot claim from both for the same assessment.
Private Health Insurance
Once you know what assessments you would like, you next need to find out from your private health insurance company what rebate you are eligible for. This varies considerably depending on the company and level of cover.
If you have private health insurance, we suggest you clarify for each professional assessment:
- Do they have a rebate for an assessment that is different from the rebate for an initial consultation. For example, some funds pay $125 back on a Psychologist assessment, but only $75 back for an initial consultation.
- How much do they pay for an initial consultation with that professional
- How much do they pay for each follow up or subsequent consultation with that professional (e.g. $55)
- Do they have a maximum they will pay per annum for a single professional
We recommend you find out the answers to these questions for each individual allied health professional's services. If you wish to undertake several assessments, you need also to find out if the company will pay for several assessments, and what the maximum they will pay per annum for all allied health visits.
