You may be wondering?
Why are the fees set at what they are? Why is there no bulkbilling… ? Surely my clinician, or the Director, is living the high life with what they earn from the session fees…?
Some background information… to become a Clinical Psychologist, requires a minimum of 6 years University education. However, our Director completed 8 years, as she also completed a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the same time as her Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology.
All of this education also comes with significant student debt. Following this education, she was then required to complete two years of supervised practice at a significantly reduced earning rate. So the cost of her education has been significant, as is all of our Psychologists’.
Although it looks like we must be “raking” in the ‘moolah’… this is just a short overview of where your session fees get utilised…or what it might cover…
- the cost of our professional registration fees to AHPRA
- the cost of employing staff (support staff & clinical staff)
- the cost of our professional insurances
- the cost of the belonging to our professional associations (Australian Clinical Psychologists Association, the Institute of Clinical Psychologists, the Australian Association of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, the EMDR Association of Australia, the Australian Psychological Society and so on) to make sure we get the best and most up to date advice and support to help us continue to be an ethical and up to date psychologist
- the cost of renting our rooms
- the cost of electricity, cleaning and office supplies
- the cost of our computing equipment and software
- the cost of the assessment tools we use, as well as the licenses and ongoing costs associated with many of these
- the cost of our stationery and paper, and toners for printers
- the cost of our business cards and marketing
- the cost of registering our business name every year
- the cost of running this website and emails
- the cost of running our telephone and internet
- the cost of appointment reminder fees
- the cost of processing Medicare rebates
- the credit card and EFTPOS processing fees
- the cost of our professional clinical supervision
- the cost of undertaking our compulsory professional development as required by AHPRA.
- the cost of specialised training that we undertake to serve our clients
- the cost of maintaining our professional library and resources
And there are probably a few more things that we have forgotten about. The team hope this helps you understand why we charge the fees we do and why we don’t reduce the fee when people ask us to.
When psychologists work for a low fee, they often burn out because they must see high volumes of clients in order to make a reasonable income.
As you may be aware, the Australian Psychological Society (APS) recommended fee is $300 as of July 2023. This is the fee they recommend that psychologists need to charge in order to run their businesses and receive a reasonable income.
Currently, we do not charge that as we want to make our fee as accessible as possible, to the people we serve.
