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Posted: 2022-12-12 02:18:55

Subsidised visits to psychologists will be halved within weeks, with the new federal government abandoning a program added at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Health Minister Mark Butler said patients would only be able to claim Medicare rebates for 10 visits to a psychologist next year, down from the 20 people have been able to access in recent years.

In August 2020, the number of sessions available through the Better Access program was temporarily increased from 10 to 20.

Mr Butler said while the Better Access program had offered benefits for people using it, not everyone had been able to access it equally. 

"The evaluation I am publishing today considered the impact of those additional 10 sessions and found they drove a very big increase in the number of services in this sector generally," Mr Butler said.

"But it found that those additional 10 aggravated existing wait lists and aggravated barriers to access, particularly by (people in rural and low socio-economic areas).

"The evaluation found that all of the additional services went to existing patients and that the number of new patients who were able to get into the system and get access to psychology services actually declined by 7 per cent."

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