If I See A Psychologist On Medicare, Does This Leave A Record?

Question: If I see a psychologist on Medicare - does this leave a record? Will this information be able to be accessed by anyone else (i.e. employers, courts etc?) What records are kept? How are they stored? I understand this is different for different professionals but I am curious to find out more?

Answer:  Hello. If you see a psychologist and you're rebated via Medicare then the information will be recorded (presumably) in the same way that Medicare records all of our health visits. However, you would need to talk to Medicare directly for clarification.

As psychologists we're required to keep our records in a locked filing cabinet to which no-one except us has access. Psychologists are bound by confidentiality regulations which prevent us from disclosing identifying information about clients. However, there are two exceptions: if a client is threatening to harm themselves or to harm someone else, then we have a duty of care to protect our client from self-harm or the person being threatened by the client from being harmed. Psychologists ask each client to sign a consent form at the start of therapy to acknowledge this. Also psychologists can't talk about a client's case in any way identifying who the client is. Clients do regularly talk to supervisors about their clients to get help with the case but we don't give identifying information about the client. Hope this helps to answer your questions.

Answer provided by Dr Kim Carter, Clinical Psychologist