What is ACC providing?
From Monday16August, ACC will pay for up to 16 hours with an ACC-registered sexual abuse counsellor to ensure the safety and wellbeing of people who lodge a new sensitive claim with ACC. This support will also be available to people who have already lodged a claim and are waiting to find out if ACC will accept their sensitive claim.
What are Support Sessions?
The key aims of the sessions are to support the client’s safety and wellbeing in the early stages of their claim and to help the client to progress to an appropriate outcome. It is envisaged that these support sessions will be sufficient to meet the needs of many people, who will therefore not go on to require ACC cover or ACC-funded treatment.
Alternatively, for those people who do demonstrate signs of possible mental injury arising from sexual abuse the sessions can be used to gather information to help ACC make a cover decision. We know this is not always immediately evident, so the counsellor and the client can work together to decide when to progress the client’s claim through to the cover determination process.
Support Sessions can continue while this cover investigation is occurring. It will be important for the client to be well informed of the process for determining cover and what this means for them.
It is anticipated the counsellor will play an active role in providing practical assistance and education as well as information and assurance on the ACC process and other options for support in the community.
Further details of how the sessions can be used, reporting requirements and the role of the counsellor during this period of time are continuing to be developed in consultation with the provider sector and this information will be available by mid September.
What is the process for starting Support Sessions?
Before you can start providing support sessions, the sensitive claim must be lodged with ACC using the ACC45 form.
Registered Counsellors can submit this form, as per usual process, on behalf of their clients:
Service item code |
Service item description |
Amount excl GST |
|---|---|---|
PSYS01 |
Submitting an ACC45 |
69.70 |
Please indicate on the ACC45 form that the client will be accessing Support Sessions.
Make sure to check with clients if a sensitive claim has already been recently lodged by another health professional, for example the client’s GP. ACC will be encouraging GPs who lodge sensitive claims on behalf of their patients to then refer on to an ACC Registered Sexual Abuse Counsellor for Support Sessions.
Once the claim has been lodged, Support Sessions can commence.
How do I invoice and get paid for the work I have done?
Because the hours have been pre-approved you won’t have to wait for a purchase order or purchase approval number from ACC to be able to invoice for your services.
Once the claim has been lodged, and you have the client’s claim number, you can submit invoices for payment for support sessions up to a maximum of 16 hours:
Service item code |
Service item description |
Amount GST excl, per hour |
|---|---|---|
PSYE03 |
Support Sessions |
69.70 |
Does ACC require any special information on my invoice?
Yes. ACC requires you to state on your invoice the following information:
- The start and end dates of the Support Sessions services provided for which you are invoicing; and
- All other usual invoicing information including your ACC provider number, the full ACC client name and claim number. See ‘How to Invoice ACC’ for further general information on invoicing.
How often can I invoice?
We recommend that you invoice for your services in a timely manner. ACC would like to suggest at least monthly, this will allow your accounts to remain up to date and enable ACC to ensure that we are able to release the payment.
Please note that ACC is not able to release payment for services delivered more than 12 months prior to the time of processing.
Please check back to this site regularly for updated information.