Where Healing and Growth Happen

Unfortunately we don’t offer bulk billing, however most of our clinicians are able to offer a Medicare rebate with a Mental Heath Care Plan from your GP. This allows you to access 10 partly subsidised sessions, so there will still be a gap fee of approx $80-$120 per session. Prices depend on the clinician you see as they all set their own fees.

Each clinician sets their own fees so you’ll need to discuss exact costs with your allocated clinician directly, however an approximate range is $200-280 per session – fees differ depending on the clinicians experience and qualifications. Most clinicians can offer Medicare rebates if you have a Mental Health Care Plan from your GP (this allows you to access 10 partly subsidised sessions). The approx out of pocket fee is $80-$120 per session, but you will have to discuss the exact costs with the therapist you are allocated.

You will need to discuss this with your specific insurance provider, whether they cover individual psychological sessions and how much of the cost they cover per annum – you might have to pay out of pocket and then claim back on your insurance after-the-fact.

We allocate clinicians based on what you write in the ‘area(s) of concern’ box on the appointment request form, so if there’s anything you’d particularly like help with or a particular modality of therapy, please write this there as we will use this to allocate you a clinician with relevant experience and qualifications to best suit you and your needs. You’re welcome to choose your own clinician by having a look at their profiles on our website, however there’s over 50 clinicians in total so most people prefer us to match them. Our clinicians book their own appointments, so they will call you to arrange the first appointment with you, this is your chance to ask any questions you might have – costs, days available etc. We recommend that you meet with the clinician at least once to get a proper feel for them, however if for whatever reason you didn’t feel like you were a good fit with the clinician, you are welcome to tell them or email/call us in the office to let us know you’d like to be re-added to the waiting list.

No, you can self-refer to Birchtree by filling out the appointment request form on our website. If you want to access the 10 partly subsidised sessions on Medicare you will need to get a Mental Health Care Plan from your doctor before your first session, but you can join the waiting list without one. Your doctor can address the referral/ Mental Health Care Plan to ‘Birchtree Centre’ generally rather than needing a specific clinicians name.

The wait time changes often, but you can check the current wait time on the appointment request form page, this is updated regularly. Please note that the wait time is only approximate, how long you wait for an appointment depends on a number of factors – clinicians availability, your availability – being as flexible as possible with days/times for appointments will reduce your wait time, your needs and areas of concern, and if you want anything specific in a therapist this may effect your wait time.

Birchtree is open for therapy appointments Monday-Saturday, 7am-8pm. However appointment times depend on the specific clinicain, the days they work and appointment slots they have available. Clinicians decide their own hours so you would need to ask your specific clinician if they are working on specific public holidays. The Admin team work Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm and don’t work on public holidays.

Strictly only registered therapy dogs are allowed into the centre, we will need a copy of their certificate and they need to wear their therapy dog vest when they come in.

We accept referrals for NDIS if you are plan or self-managed, you’ll just need to discuss this with your specific therapist to work out the logistics of payment, so please make this clear on your appt request form. However since we aren’t an official NDIS provider we unfortunately can’t see clients whose funds are NDIS-managed. Our groups are the same, so we can have people in our groups who are self or plan managed, but please indicate this when completing the form to register interest in attending one of the groups.

Yes, any of our clinicians with a Medicare provider number can bill under the DVA scheme – this is all of our clinicians except Psychotherapists or Counsellors (e.g. Clin Psych’s, Psychologists, Clinical Social Workers), just make sure you write this on your appt request form.

Currently we are at capacity for Victim Services clients and aren’t accepting new referrals under these schemes. We recommend contacting Victim Services NSW for alternative referral options. Unfortunately we do not have any clinicians registered under the workers compensation scheme and so can’t accept referrals for it. Please contact SIRA NSW for alternative referral options for workers compensation.

Have you seen a clinician at Birchtree before? No – please fill out an appointment request form, you can find this at the top right hand corner on every page of our website. Please note we do have a waiting list for both Centres (Forest Lodge and Pymble). Once you have filled out the form you will join the waiting list where you will wait until an appropriate clinician becomes available for ongoing appointments. Yes – if you’d like to see them again and still have their contact details, you can contact them directly to request an appointment. If you’d like to see them again but don’t have their contact details, you can fill out our appointment request form, put their name in the ‘specific clinician’ box and we’ll forward it onto them, they will then contact you to make an appointment. If you wouldn’t like to see them again, you can fill out an appointment request form as above, however to help us match you with someone new it would be helpful if you wrote the name of the clinician you used to see and why it didn’t work out / if there is anything we need to consider when matching you with someone new.