These guidelines should be read in conjunction with the information at Working with the TAC.

Who can provide social work services?

You can provide services if you are a qualified social worker who is eligible for full membership of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW).

What we can pay for

Within the first 90 days of a client’s accident, we can help pay for social work without the need for you or the client to contact us for approval first. The treatment or service must be recommended by a health professional, related to the client’s accident injuries and delivered in line with the Clinical Framework.

If you intend to continue treating a TAC client beyond 90 days after their transport accident you will need to send us a request in writing or a copy of their treatment plan. We will review our client’s treatment to ensure it’s reasonable, clinically justified, outcome focused and in line with the Clinical Framework. We will assess your request and let you and the client know our decision about what we can help pay for and for how long.

If our client has not received treatment in 6 months they will need to seek approval from us before we will pay for further treatment. Ask our client for a copy of their approval if you haven’t seen them in 6 months.

For details see What we can pay for and How to seek TAC approval.

Social work services 

We can help pay for:

• client consultations
• individual treatment
• group treatment
• case management
• visiting a client who is an inpatient in a private hospital where the hospital has consented and the hospital is not a TAC arrangement hospital

Travel

We can help pay for:

• travel to conduct treatment in the community, where this is clinically justified

Travel time can be paid for travel to and from your practice address and your client's residence. Where more than one client is visited in a single travel period, total travel costs should be apportioned equally between clients.

Family counselling

We can help pay for:

• family counselling to family members of an eligible client, when paid as a part of the claim of a person who dies or is severely injured as a result of a transport accident

Contact us to check client or family member eligibility. The Family Counselling Allowance applies per claim, regardless of how many eligible family members access this service. The applicable amount for each claim is dependent on when a family member first accessed the service. This allowance is the maximum amount we can pay for family counselling, as set out in the Transport Accident Act 1986. This amount is indexed annually.

Note: “Family member” refers to any member of the immediate family (i.e. partner, parent, sibling or child) of the person who dies or is severely injured as a result of a transport accident. A parent of a dependent child includes:

• a person who has day-to-day care and responsibility of the child, with whom the child is normally resident
• a guardian of the child

Other things to note

Medical excess

For accidents that occurred prior to 14 February 2018 a medical excess may apply. Visit the medical excess page to see if it applies to your client. If the medical excess applies you will need to invoice the client directly.

Clients with a severe injury

If your client has a severe injury, the discussion, referral and approval of services may form part of the independence planning process between your client's treating team and our TAC coordinator.

If your client already has an individualised funding package, social work services may be included as part of that.

How much we can pay

We can pay for services in line with our Social work fees.

If your fee is higher than our fee, you may choose to charge the client the difference in the form of a gap payment.

What we cannot pay for

We cannot pay for:

• private travel costs incurred by a family counselling provider in the event where the services are performed out of rooms
• travel costs incurred by a client's family member to travel to the destination where the family counselling services will be undertaken
• neurotherapy treatment

Also see general items we cannot pay for.

For more information

Access our policy for Mental health and wellbeing services.