Make referral and rebate information clinician-specific
Better Access provides eligible people with a limited number of rebated services, including up to ten individual sessions per calendar year. It is not an unlimited course of care or an automatic entitlement on booking. Explain referral requirements and fees through the appropriate practice information, without promising that every service or clinician qualifies.
Provisional psychologists cannot provide Medicare-rebated Better Access sessions. Their fees should not be described as a smaller Medicare gap. Clinical psychology endorsement also needs accurate wording, distinct from general registration and from an unsupported claim of superior outcomes. Assessment services, private therapy, NDIS work and group programs need their own eligibility and availability information.
How we would structure the search account
Split search intent into therapy, assessment and relevant age groups before choosing campaign boundaries. A practice accepting adult therapy enquiries should not buy child assessment searches by default. Telehealth can have a different catchment, but the clinic must be able to support that service and handle intake appropriately.
Start with local and service appointment terms, then inspect actual searches for scope, referral fit and urgency. Keep brand searches and existing-client administration distinct. Exclude crisis intent from routine appointment acquisition and avoid broad expansion while the intake team is already unable to respond. A new clinician may justify a focused campaign even when the rest of the practice has a waiting list.
Search themes to assess against your service scope
- psychologist [suburb]
- adult psychology appointments
- child psychologist [area]
- psychological assessment [area]
- telehealth psychology appointments
- psychology clinic availability
- psychology referral information
We tailor these ideas to your services, audience and advertising requirements.
A starter negative-keyword review
Review jobs, salary, degree, training and university terms as negatives. Exclude urgent crisis and emergency-help intent from routine campaigns. Treat free-service and bulk-billing queries according to the actual offer rather than assuming Medicare means no gap.
What the landing page needs to answer
State the relevant clinician, registration or endorsement, age group, service and current intake position. Explain fees and referral eligibility through practice information. Keep provisional appointments clearly separate from Medicare-rebated services.
Match the enquiry without collecting a clinical history in marketing
A prospective client needs to understand age groups, service scope, telehealth availability and how the practice handles an initial enquiry. A referring GP needs a secure referral route and accurate information about accepting clinicians. The public form should not invite detailed accounts of trauma, risk or diagnosis merely to request a call. Collect clinical information in the practice's secure intake process.
The website should make clear whether it is a routine appointment service rather than an emergency or crisis service. Enquiry acknowledgements need realistic response expectations. Internally distinguish an appropriate enquiry, a waitlist request, a confirmed appointment and attendance, without giving those clinical categories to advertising platforms.
What the available search-cost data can tell you
Our Q3 2026 Australian keyword set for mental health, which also covers counselling and psychiatry, totals 90,440 estimated average monthly searches nationally. High-range top-of-page bids among priced terms reach $11.81. Your campaign's own enquiry data will set your cost per enquiry.
We set a test around the services and locations you can take on, forecast clicks conservatively and review real enquiries before expanding. Ad spend sits separately from management.
Advertising and communication boundaries
Psychology is an Ahpra-regulated profession. Keep clinical testimonials and cure promises out of advertising, use current registration and endorsement details and treat health-related browsing and enquiry data as sensitive. Meta targeting must not infer a diagnosis, and consent alone does not override a platform's restrictions on health data.
Use: "Psychology appointments for adults, online and in [suburb]." Avoid: "Your anxiety is ruining your life, book now." The second statement asserts a personal health attribute and applies pressure.
Understand which enquiries become appointments
Agree which actions count before changing bids. A call-button click, an answered call, a submitted form and a confirmed appointment are different events. Check booking completion data against the actual system and deduplicate enquiries across phone and form. We report confirmed bookings separately from calls and form enquiries, and explain any gaps in tracking.
We track calls without recording every conversation, and any recording runs through a consent process. Clinical notes, diagnoses and referral documents stay out of analytics and advertising audiences.
How we would judge the work
Use internal records to distinguish suitable enquiries, waitlist requests, referral completion, bookings and attendance. Do not send diagnoses, assessment types or referral documents to advertising tools to improve attribution.
Five mistakes to check in an audit
- The whole practice advertised as available. List actual clinician and service capacity rather than inviting enquiries to a closed waiting list.
- Provisional appointments described as a Medicare gap. Explain the actual fee and the lack of Better Access rebates for provisional psychologists.
- Assessment and therapy intent mixed. Testing, reports and ongoing therapy have different intake requirements. Give them distinct pages and booking routes.
- Sensitive histories in lead forms. Request contact details and a suitable contact method, then move clinical intake to an appropriate secure system.
- Crisis searches routed to a routine form. Exclude unsuitable urgent intent from paid acquisition and make service limitations clear on relevant pages.
Related service information and reading
See our marketing approach for psychology practices and healthcare Google Ads service information. Related services: Meta Ads for psychology practices, Website design for psychology practices, SEO for psychology practices.
For search-market context, see the mental health Google Ads benchmarks. These are search advertising references, not agency prices or promised results.
Further reading: Mental Health Marketing; NDIS Psychology Prices Rise to $252.99 in 2026-27: What It Means for Providers.
Check the applicable rules: Ahpra advertising guidance; Google Ads healthcare policy guidance.
Get a free Google Ads audit to discuss the services, capacity and enquiry pathways that matter for your organisation.
Updated 4 October 2026.
