Australian Mental Health Care Classification Consultation Paper Released

The Independent Hospital Pricing Authority (IHPA) has released the first public consultation paper on the Development of the Australian Mental Health Care Classification.
The Australian Mental Health Care Classification (AMHCC) is designed to improve the way mental health care services can be classified, counted and costed across admitted and community settings.
Having a nationally adopted classification will allow Australian governments to provide funding for mental health care services based on Activity Based Funding. It will also help individual services and service systems better understand how their mental health services work and where clinical, financial and other resources are applied,  allowing for performance benchmarking across similar services.
IHPA has been charged with developing the new national classification by July 2016.
Once the AMHCC is implemented it will assist with:

•  Increased transparency and improvement in cost predictiveness


•  Support for new models of mental health care being implemented


•  Building incentives for best practice integrated community and hospital care.

IHPA is seeking feedback on the proposed structure of the classification and its approach to the development of the system.
The public consultation paper on the Development of the Australian Mental Health Care Classification is available at www.ihpa.gov.au.
Submissions should be emailed as an accessible Word document to submissions.ihpa@ihpa.gov.au or mailed to PO Box 483, Darlinghurst NSW 1300 by 5pm on Friday 13 February 2015.