Personalised Mental Health Treatment Plan: Holistic Planning Built Around You
A personalised mental health treatment plan is the bridge between a diagnosis and getting better. A diagnosis tells you what is going on; the plan sets out what to do about it — and a good plan is built around your life, your goals and your circumstances, not a template. At Mindora Health, every comprehensive assessment in Wollongong ends with a written, personalised plan that is reviewed at every follow-up and adjusted as clinically indicated.
What is a personalised mental health treatment plan?
A personalised mental health treatment plan is a written clinical management plan prepared after a comprehensive assessment. It records your diagnosis, the treatment options recommended and why, how your progress will be monitored, who else is involved in your care, and what to do if things get worse. It is prepared with you, not for you.
The word “personalised” matters. Two people with the same diagnosis can need very different plans. Someone with depression who is also drinking heavily, living in unstable housing and caring for children needs a different approach from someone with the same diagnosis whose circumstances are stable. A plan that ignores those differences is unlikely to work.
Holistic means biological, psychological and social — together
A holistic mental health management plan addresses three sets of contributors at once, because that is how they operate in real life:
- Biological — medication, physical health, sleep, alcohol and other drug use, and any investigations needed to rule out medical causes
- Psychological — therapy, coping strategies, psychoeducation and self-management skills
- Social — relationships, work or study, housing, finances, supports and services
This is the biopsychosocial treatment plan model that underpins mental health nursing practice. It is also the framework our practitioner used in her published research on the care of people living with co-occurring mental health and substance use problems. Read about our practitioner →
Person-centred, trauma-informed, recovery-oriented
Your plan is person-centred: the goals in it are yours. It is trauma-informed: we work at your pace and do not ask you to retell painful experiences unnecessarily. And it is recovery-oriented and solution-focused: it is aimed at helping you live well, not only at reducing symptoms.
What a personalised mental health treatment plan may include
Depending on what your assessment finds, your plan may cover:
Not every plan includes every item. The point of a personalised mental health treatment plan is that it contains what you need — no more, no less.
How we build your personalised mental health treatment plan: 5 essential steps
Personalised mental health care built around your needs, with clear planning and regular review.
Your plan is built from a 60-minute, in-person comprehensive biopsychosocial assessment in Wollongong — not a brief screening. We take a full history of your current concerns, past treatment, physical health, medications, substance use, trauma history and social circumstances. A plan is only as good as the assessment underneath it.
We discuss the options with you, including the likely benefits, the risks and the alternatives for each — for example, whether medication is recommended, what the evidence says about it, and what the non-pharmacological options are. You decide, with our clinical advice. Where the evidence suggests a non-medication approach is as good or better, we will say so.
You receive a written copy of your plan in plain language. With your consent, so does your GP. Having the plan in writing means you, your GP and any other clinician involved are working from the same document — and you can refer back to it between appointments.
Your plan is reviewed at each telehealth follow-up. We check what is working, what isn't, and what has changed in your life, and adjust the plan as clinically indicated. Early on, or after a change, reviews are usually more frequent; once you are stable, less so.
Each year you return for a full in-person reassessment. Circumstances change, treatments that once worked may stop working, and a plan written twelve months ago may no longer fit. The annual review makes sure your personalised mental health treatment plan still reflects where you are now.
Mental Health Medication Management
Is this the same as a GP Mental Health Treatment Plan?
No — and the difference matters, because the two are often confused.
A GP Mental Health Treatment Plan (sometimes called a “mental health care plan”) is a specific Medicare arrangement prepared by a GP, psychiatrist or paediatrician under the Australian Government’s Better Access initiative. It gives you access to a set number of Medicare-rebated sessions with a psychologist or other eligible allied health provider each calendar year. Details are on the Services Australia website. A Nurse Practitioner cannot prepare that Medicare plan.
A Mindora Health personalised mental health treatment plan is a comprehensive clinical management plan for your care with us — diagnosis, medication, monitoring, strategies and referrals. It is not a Better Access referral.
The two work well together. Many people have a GP Mental Health Treatment Plan for their psychology sessions and a Mindora Health plan for assessment, diagnosis and medication management. If you would benefit from Medicare-rebated psychology and don’t yet have a GP plan, we will say so and recommend you see your GP.
Why have your plan prepared by a Mental Health Nurse Practitioner?
Nurse Practitioners are registered nurses with advanced clinical training, endorsed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia to assess, diagnose, order investigations and prescribe within their scope of practice under the Nurse Practitioner Standards for Practice. In practice that means one clinician can assess you, prepare your plan, prescribe where indicated and review you — without the plan being split across several services and several waiting lists.
Treatment planning at Mindora Health draws on the “bridging the gap” principle behind the practice: bringing what is known to be effective from the research evidence to what patients actually experience at the point of care. Our practitioner holds a Master of Philosophy in Addiction Medicine from the University of Sydney, and her published research on co-occurring mental health and substance use problems is directly relevant here. Integrated planning that addresses both together, rather than treating one and referring the other elsewhere, is a core part of how plans are built. Read about our practitioner and research →
Fees
| Appointment | Duration | Fee | Medicare rebate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial comprehensive assessment and formulation of treatment plan | 60 min | $250 | $117.20 |
| Long follow-up — review and revise treatment plan | 40 min | $150 | $75.60 |
| Standard follow-up — monitor and evaluate treatment plan | 20 min | $100 | $52.55 |
| Brief follow-up | 10 min | $50 | $27.80 |
Your plan is formulated at the initial assessment and reviewed at follow-ups. Fees are charged after your appointment. See all fees and Medicare item numbers →
