The Medicare Mental Health Check In is now live, and the service will be expanded to include self-paced online therapy at the end of May.
Free mental health therapy is now available through the federal government’s Medicare Mental Health Check In, which will be expanded to include self-guided sessions in two months.
The phone service opened on Monday and is available to anyone aged 16 or over who is experiencing – or at risk of – “mild mental health challenges” such as low mood, mild anxiety or depression and who need support.
The program is free, and no referral or diagnosis is needed. Interpreter services are also available in more than 150 languages.
After an initial phone assessment, people can also access free low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (LiCBT) telehealth sessions with guidance from trained practitioners – also without a referral.
“From the initial phone call, trained team members first check that Medicare Mental Health Check In is the right service for the caller. If so, then they are then connected with trained practitioners,” a spokesperson for St Vincent’s Health Australia – which operates the MMHC – told The Medical Republic.
“The trained practitioner can guide a help-seeker across a number of sessions, including reviewing progress, discussing challenges, and tailoring strategies to their needs.”
The spokesperson said self-paced online therapy would become available at the end of May.
“To give people more flexibility and choice, from 30 May, Medicare Mental Health Check In users will be able to work through the site’s mental health tools independently, with the option of getting additional support from a professional if they need it.
“People can then move between self-guided and guided LiCBT if their needs or preferences change.”
The government-funded program is delivered in partnership with St Vincent’s Health Australia and is expected to help more than 150,000 people each year from 2029.
Federal health minister Mark Butler said a “missing piece of the mental health jigsaw puzzle in Australia” was a support service for mild to moderate and temporary distress.
There was “a big gap in the system” before this program, he told media today.
“Either you had to go to a GP and get a diagnosis, a formal diagnosis of anxiety or depression, and then a referral to a psychologist for formal therapy, or you had to have a level of distress that frankly approached suicidal ideation to be able really to access one of those crisis hotlines.
“Here we’re talking about people with mild to moderate distress, not to minimise it, but to say it’s something short of a formal clinical diagnosis that can be elevated through what is happening in our environment, a global fuel crisis, terrorist attacks, or it might be driven by those inevitable life events like relationship breakdowns, job losses and bereavements.
“And at the moment there’s been nothing there to just provide some relatively informal support to people who just aren’t able to get through one of those events through the usual supports we get from family and friends.”
Mr Butler said the workforce would be scaled up “quite rapidly” to around 150 practitioners by the end of the year.
Interpreter services will be used to ensure that the intervention provided by practitioners was translated in a “clinically professional way”, he said.
“Although we do have quite a diverse workforce, we will be using interpreters to make sure that clinical concepts are translated in a way that remains accurate.”
St Vincent’s Health Australia chief medical officer Chris Robinson said the launch of the program was “a momentous occasion within the mental health landscape within Australia”.
“The Medicare Mental Health program will provide early access to those who need it when they need it, and more importantly where they need it.
“We know from our experience both with mental and physical health that getting access to preventative care, getting access to help early makes a huge difference to the trajectory of people’s clinical journeys as well as their lives.
“This program acknowledges that mental health can be hard at times to navigate, and sometimes life gets in the way of getting the care that we need.
“This program takes away those barriers and provides the support to people early in their journey, which will be transformational for their health.”
Assistant minister for mental health and suicide prevention Emma McBride said St Vincent’s had recruited mental health social workers, psychologists and counsellors who had been given additional training.
“Medicare Mental Health Check In provides low intensity therapy that’s internationally recognised and evidence-based and is being used in other comparable countries that has been shown to be effective and safe.”
Mr Butler said levels of community distress tended to spike after major events such as terrorist attacks.
“We saw a very big spike in distress levels after the Bondi terrorist attack,” he said.
“The crisis lines that we fund and have funded for many years, like Lifeline and others, recorded very, very high levels of call rates.
“We had to provide additional support to those services to deal with the increased demand.
“We know, for example, through covid, before some of the additional payments came into effect, that the cost-of-living pressures that are placed on households also leads to elevated levels of distress.”
When asked by media whether the program would be opened up to people under 16, Mr Butler said the government was continuing to roll out youth-specific mental health services.
“We know … that prevalence of mental health disorders is highest among young people,” he said.
“Historically we’ve not had services that cater particularly for young people.
“When I was young, which albeit is a long time ago, if you had a mental health issue, you were expected to go to mum and dad’s GP, and unsurprisingly, a lot of young people didn’t take that up.
“And that’s why we’ve built out headspace, eheadspace, other digital services like ReachOut, some of the specialist services that we’re in the process of expanding through the election commitments we made last year.
“There are youth-specific services for young people who are in distress, whether that’s a relatively moderate level of distress or higher, and this service is particularly targeted for people aged over 16.”
Medicare Mental Health can be reached on 1800 595 212 between 8:30am and 5pm weekdays, excluding public holidays. There is also the option to request a call back from Medicare Mental Health.
Appointments with a trained practitioner are available from Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm, and from 10am to 4pm on weekends and public holidays.
Interpreter services are available in more than 150 languages for guided sessions, and the Medicare Mental Health Check In website has tools and resources translated in the top 10 languages spoken in Australia.
Go to www.medicarementalhealthcheckin.gov.au for more information.
