Mental health presentation are very common in primary care and often require a mental health treatment plan to be completed. In order to access the higher Medicare billing numbers when completing the plans it is compulsory to undertake a Mental Health Skills Training course. Luckily for you this can be completed online through the ThinkGP learning patform for free (https://www.thinkgp.com.au/).
All you need to do is create a free account and complete the two modules each taking roughly 6 hours to compete. In addition there are other useful e-learning modules that you can also complete for your learning on various topics relevant to general practice!
Once the mental health skills modules are completed bear in mind that they have to be sent to the RACGP’s mental health skills education team who have to pass this along to Medicare. If you have not linked up your provider number to your account, the education team cannot send the certificates of completion to Medicare so you will need to contact them. As this process takes several weeks to be completed I would recommend that you complete the training as soon as possible to access the higher rebates.
Before you bill at the higher rates ensure that Medicare have updated your profile or your claim will be rejected.
I found the module very helpful to get an introduction into what is required to complete a mental health treatment plan as well as the benefits for patients. There are guidelines from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry which you can use to further your knowledge and understanding of how to manage patients with mental health presentation (https://www.ranzcp.org/practice-education/guidelines-and-resources-for-practice).
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