High school student Hayley Prenter was already struggling with multiple deaths in her family when her parents split up right before the HSC exams in 2021.
Then the 19-year-old was thrown into Western Sydney's strict COVID lockdown and nightly curfew, so she sought help from a psychologist.
She is one of almost 40 per cent of 16-24 year olds who reported a mental health condition last year, whose treatment plans will be cut short if the federal government stops funding an extra 10 sessions a year.
The government's Better Access initiative doubled the number of bulk-billed mental health sessions available to patients, from 10 to 20 in 2020 and 2021.
Australian Psychological Society (APS) President Tamara Cavanett said more than two million Australians accessed the sessions last year alone, the majority of them young Australians, especially women.
"They'll either have to pay out of pocket, or do what many people were doing before, which is just not get mental health care," she said.
"It's something that we would never talk about if it was chemotherapy."
The Federal Health Department has commissioned a clinical advisory group to review the scheme, to determine if it should be extended past its end date of 31 December 2022.
Ms Prenter said she would no longer be able to attend fortnightly psychologist appointments if the scheme was cut back.
"I definitely still need to access psychology, I suffer a lot with anxiety and depression and my psychologist at the moment is really helping with that," she said.
"Moving back to 10 sessions would mean that I'd have to spread my appointments out to every four weeks or every six weeks to be able to fill up a year."
Ms Prenter is petitioning the federal government to keep funding the extra 10 sessions and has amassed more than 24,000 signatures.
Evidence suggests more sessions required
Lillibeth Horkings-McMinn lives in student accommodation in South Brisbane. A fridge sits next to her bed in her small studio room.
The 19-year-old former acting student had to give up university to work full-time, so she could afford a basic livelihood.
She has seen a psychologist on and off for PTSD, anxiety and depression since she was a child, but cannot afford the same level of care as an adult without a Medicare subsidy.
"Twenty visits allows you that time to not only get comfortable with your practitioner, (but) discover more about yourself and actually put those strategies into practice as well," she said.
"It's definitely not something that I could afford to do out of my own pocket."
APS President Tamara Cavanett is lobbying the federal government to extend the program, arguing there was never any evidence that 10 sessions was best practise to treat a mental health condition.
"There is really strong evidence that around 18 to 20 sessions is what's required for even someone who's experiencing a mild mental illness," she said.
During the two years, psychologists provided a million more sessions than usual, forcing one in three psychologists to close their books to new patients, according to an APS survey of its members.
Ms Cavanett said the shortage of psychologists was another problem, caused by a lack of placements for final year psychology students.
"We know we can double the number [of psychologists] in a few short years and resolve that bottleneck if there just was the same university funding that's there for medicine or veterinary science," she said.
The APS said the doubling of the Medicare funded mental health sessions cost just one per cent of the annual mental health spend.
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said the program was meant to be temporary, in response to "rising levels of anxiety and distress as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic."
"Any Government decision on the additional 10 sessions will be widely communicated with the sector in advance of the current end date of 31 December 2022 to ensure continuity of care and certainty in treatment planning for people receiving these services," he told the ABC in a statement.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Karen Price said she supported the extra 10 sessions but said GPs were still providing a lot of mental health support.
Dr Price said it seemed "ridiculous" that Medicare fully funded short medical procedures but not longer sessions "counselling a suicidal adolescent".
"I find that challenging."
