Medicare Benefits Schedule

Temporary Medicare Benefit Schedule (MBS) items for subsidised allied health services, including mental health services in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs) - available until 30 June 2022

Temporary MBS items are available to support RACF residents’ mental and physical health, especially those who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

These items apply to RACF residents referred for services under the following treatment, management or care plans:

Multidisciplinary Care Plans; or
GP Management Plans; or
Mental Health Treatment Plans (MHTPs); or
Psychiatrist Assessment and Management Plans (PAMPs); or
Shared Care Plans; or
Team Care Plans; and/or
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Assessments.

In addition, temporary face-to-face MBS items have been introduced for RACF residents for longer initial individual allied health chronic disease management services and initial Indigenous follow up services.

More information, including fact sheets on the temporary MBS items is available here for allied health providers, and for GPs and Other Medical Providers and here for mental health items.

The Department of Health’s Ask MBS advisory has additional information on the temporary MBS items, as part of an advisory on allied health items for chronic disease management. More information is available here.

MBS resources

MPHN engaged Kim Poyner from MediCoach and Riwka Hagen from Medical Business Services to develop a General Practitioner (GP) education package, which includes a suit of resources outlining:

The importance of providing allied health services to the residents in RACFs experiencing dementia and other chronic and complex medical needs
The temporary MBS allied health and mental health items for residents of aged care facilities, and how they can be used to better support residents

Please access below the list of available resources:

Recorded modules: