ACC pays a set non-attendance fee — a DNA, for did not attend — when a client does not attend a scheduled appointment. The current rate is $77.49 excluding GST. To be able to request it, several conditions need to be met.
ACC sets two conditions:
And one limit:
Take reasonable steps to support the client’s attendance, and record the appointment and the non-attendance in the clinical record.
Neither is required by the contract. Both make the request straightforward, and both matter if it is ever questioned.
An appointment reminder is the simplest of those steps, and the one our DNA report asks about.
Where possible, please use your existing practice-management reminder system. If you do not have an automated reminder system, a scheduled email or text message can be used.
Please keep a record of when and how the reminder was sent.
Please notify PractiSpace on the same day, or no later than the next working day. Please provide:
These are the fields of our DNA report, which we complete and send to ACC. Sending them all at once means we can lodge the request the same day.
If you are unsure whether a late cancellation meets the two-working-day requirement, simply send us the details and we will check.
You do not need to contact ACC or arrange the PSYDNA Purchase Order yourself.
PractiSpace will:
I hope this makes the process easier to follow. Once you’ve started claiming DNAs, let me know if you think anything could work better.
A DNA is not only an event to report and be paid for. Non-attendance can itself be clinically meaningful — it may point to difficulty engaging with treatment, or to something else that is holding the client back.
If you think a pattern of non-attendance points to something like this, please get in touch with me so we can think it through together. In these situations the DNA is a symptom of something else, and it matters that we address that rather than treat each missed appointment in isolation.
PractiSpace Limited — a contracted supplier to ACC under the Psychological Services (PSB) contract.