Understanding Therapy Fees.

(adapted from an online article by Rachel Foorde and Psychotherapist, Natajsa Wagner)

I hope this information provides some insight into the chosen and increase of therapy costs over the years. 

We know that the cost of private psychology support can be one of the barriers to people reaching out and seeking individual therapy. The Australian Psychological Society (or the APS), which is the peak body representing psychologists in Australia, has set their recommended fee at $300 for a 45-60 minute consultation.

For many people, when you multiply this rate by number of sessions a person has in a year, you may come out with a large estimated sum of what your therapist may earn per year.

There are a few thing to understand about this figure and how it is broken down. I hope this provides some information about why therapists fees continue to increase.

Most Psychologists work in a private practice and operate as ‘sole traders’.

At least 30% of their split goes to paying Tax, and they are also contributing to their own superannuation (another 12%). There are costs of renting or owning office space, relevant bills (such as electricity, water, internet, etc.), maintaining the materials and resources for therapy (such as furniture, computers, whiteboards, etc), paying for the right to use a variety of standardised mental health resources, other salaries for administration support, and relevant taxes.

Your therapist also then has a range of expenses – including their own insurances, their own clinical supervision, personal therapy, case consultation (usually monthly or more frequently), professional development training, their own registration and professional membership fees. These are all required to remain legally practising, and total thousands of dollars per year.

Your therapists session rate must also cover their time for work outside of session work, such as keeping notes, contacting other relevant health professionals, planning, writing and sending resources, and writing reports. Therapists in private practice also don’t get paid leave, so their session fees must also cover their expenses when not working, and taking holidays, study leave, or sick/carers leave. This is also why therapists have a fee for rescheduling without notice or non attendance.

Please know, of course, there are also other options for accessing low fee and/or bulk billing mental health support in our community. Please speak to your health professional to get advice on the best fit for you and information about some of these alternate options.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this information and I hope it provides some greater clarity on our fees and why increases continue to be made.