Medicare spending on mental health services depends on where you live in Australia. New research show.
We found that mental health results are not good, including more suicide, including lower medical expenses for non -hospital mental health services.
Most of these changes in the country have been associated with cases where people in some regions have poor mental health from the beginning regarding factors such as mental health providers and lack of GPS.
We also have additional government funds for today’s money recent data.
We have always increased government spending on outside hospital mental health services to $ 155 million annually (about $ 7.30 per adult).
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28,151 Visit to the mental health emergency room (10% reduction)
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The number of hospitalizations due to the 1,954 self -harm (20% reduction)
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313 suicide (10% reduction).
It is best to target this additional funds in our study.
What we did
We have looked at non -hospital mental health services and psychologists and psychiatrists visited by Medicare, such as GP Mental Health. For the purpose of this article, we will call the mental health service supported by this Medicare.
We also saw a mental health prescription (eg, depression or anxiety).
We have looked at these services and prescriptions for the entire Australian population from 2011 to 2019.
We checked how adults moved between the region and how the use and prescriptions of mental health services changed. This meant that we could explain fundamental individual factors such as someone’s mental health demands.
Our study allowed us to evaluate how much the government’s mental health care availability affects mental health services and prescriptions and how it is related to people’s mental health results.
What we found
We found that only 28%of local mental health services are led by patients, such as the necessity of mental health care. The rest was for geographical reasons such as the availability of mental health providers and GPS.
However, about 81%of the regional changes in spending on mental health scripts were due to patient factors.
In other words, when people experience mental health and approach mental health drugs Mainly provided by GPIt is much easier than being treated by psychiatric doctors or psychologists.
In areas with low spending on mental health services outside the hospital, there were high visits to emergency rooms related to mental health, self -hospitalization and suicide rate.
We mapped access to mental health services
We also compared funds for those with the same “need” for mental health services in other regions. This comes from 0% (no access) in the best access (mostly financing), which is 100% reduced.
After controlling factors such as socioeconomic background and basic mental health care requests, the best approach was Gold Coast, and Medicare spending on outside hospitals was the highest.
The worst approaches were West Queensland and Northern Territory. If you need similar mental health care here, you will receive about 50% less mental health service spending than anyone in Gold Coast.
How can we use our results?
According to recent analysis, government mental health expenditure It has rarely changed in 30 years. now About 7.4% of Total health budget.
Our consequences suggest that mental health services are not met. But some areas are affected than other regions.
Therefore, we must especially aim for additional funds for rural and low -income areas, especially when considering approach to psychologists and psychiatrists.
Recent policy initiatives have tried to improve access to GPS. Here, the supplier is producing and creating financial incentives for mass bills. Alienated.
But I have these policies small or Humble effect Enhance access to GPS. In addition, the focus was less focused on bringing more professional mental health providers such as psychologists and psychiatrists to the marginalized areas.
To solve the imbalances of mental health care and unhearded demands, we recommend:
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Mental health manpower expansion: Incentive implementation of psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health training GPs in the marginalized areas
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Financial Procurement Model Reform: Fund allocation and incentive adjustment to areas that are not needed. Our will also show which area should be targeted first
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Improvement of access to digital mental health services: Using technology to access accessible mental health, especially in the area where direct services are limited, digital solutions are integrated with traditional treatment paths.
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