No treatment and no assessment begins under this contract without a referral from ACC. Everything a client receives through PSB starts with an ACC265 – Referral for Psychological Services, sent to PractiSpace, checked, and then allocated to you.
That is why the form matters. It is where ACC says what it is asking for, and it is the only place that says it.
The ACC265 is not intended to provide everything you need to know clinically about the client. In practice, ACC referrals are often brief, and some sections may contain very little information. It is not a substitute for your own assessment or formulation.
What it does tell you is what ACC is asking Psychological Services to do, and what ACC has authorised for this referral.
We check the referral and the Purchase Order before the client reaches you, so you are not responsible for managing the Purchase Order, correcting service codes or following up with ACC about administrative issues.
You do, however, need to understand what you have been referred to do. The sections below follow the order of the form.
Vendor and Supplier both mean PractiSpace — the organisation holding the ACC contract. You are the clinician providing the service. Nothing in this section needs anything from you.
Name, date of birth, contact details, and the client’s primary injury.
This section also contains the Claim Number and NHI Number. You will need the claim number when you write your reports, so it is worth noting where to find it.
The client’s GP, their practice, and the practice contact details.
The most important part of the ACC265 for understanding the referral is:
This is where ACC describes why it is referring the client for Psychological Services.
The amount and quality of information provided varies considerably. Sometimes the referral contains a useful clinical and rehabilitation summary; at other times it may contain only a few sentences.
What you need to establish is:
The client may have many difficulties that are clinically important. The referral tells us the purpose for which ACC has requested and funded Psychological Services.
If the purpose of the referral is unclear, contact PractiSpace. We can clarify the referral with ACC where necessary.
At the top of the ACC265 you will see a Purchase Order (PO) number. Under Approved Service Codes & Allocations, you will see the services ACC has authorised under that Purchase Order.
These are not separate processes. The service-code table is essentially the detail of what ACC has authorised on the PO. It may show:
This tells us that ACC has authorised the PSY50 service, for the period shown, with the stated allocation.
Each code stands for a particular kind of work. You do not need to memorise them — they are introduced in the units where they are used — but it is worth knowing that the codes are not simply billing labels. They carry ACC’s intention for this client.
If something you receive does not appear to make sense — for example, the service code appears inconsistent with what the referral is asking you to do — contact PractiSpace rather than trying to resolve it directly with ACC.
The Approved Service Codes & Allocations section also includes a Start Date and End Date. These dates define the period for which that service item has been authorised.
They are therefore different from the date of your first appointment and should not be interpreted simply as the expected duration of therapy.
As a provider, you mainly need to be aware that ACC-funded services are provided within an authorised period. If you notice that an authorised period has expired or is about to expire, let PractiSpace know.
The Quantity / Hours column tells you how much of that particular service ACC has authorised. It is important to read this together with the Item Code. Four hours of one service code do not necessarily mean the same thing as four hours of another.
Tells you what ACC has funded.
Tells you how much of it ACC has funded.
The final section of the ACC265 identifies the ACC staff member associated with the referral. The form heading reads ACC Recovery Team Member, but in practice this person is called the Recovery Partner, usually shortened to RP.
The RP is your ACC contact for this client. If something comes up that needs ACC to act — a practical issue stopping the client attending, or a decision that affects whether treatment can continue — they are the person to talk to. A later unit covers this in more detail.
The RP is also in direct contact with PractiSpace, and sends us other things needed before treatment can start. All of that happens before the client reaches you.
Once a client has been allocated to you, get in touch with them within three business days. This first contact is just to introduce yourself and either arrange your first appointment or let them know when you expect to be able to start. We’ll give you an email template you can use.
Two things to pass on to us if they come up:
Let us know as early as you can, and we’ll take it from there.
Everything on the ACC265 converges on one question:
The form answers it in two parts.
What has happened to this person, and what ACC understands to be getting in the way.
Which service ACC has approved, for how long, and how much of it.
Read together, they tell you which of the two routes from the previous unit this client is on.
ACC has authorised psychological treatment. This client is in Ana’s situation: they have an injury ACC has accepted, and psychological difficulty has grown up around it that is now getting in the way of their recovery.
Your work is to address that difficulty so their recovery can continue.
ACC has authorised an assessment. The question here is different. The psychological condition may have become an injury in its own right, and before treatment can be planned on that basis, ACC needs to establish what the condition is and how it connects to what happened.
The assessment is what answers that question.
You should be able to finish reading the referral and answer three things:
From the clinical summary.
From the service codes and allocations.
The two together.
If those three make sense, you have what you need from the ACC265 and you can begin.
If they do not — if the summary does not explain the referral, or the authorised service does not seem to match what is being asked — contact PractiSpace. That is exactly the kind of thing we sort out with ACC, and it is better sorted before you start.
When you receive an ACC referral, make sure you understand:
You are responsible for understanding the clinical purpose and scope of the work you are undertaking.
PractiSpace:
You should not need to become an ACC administrator in order to provide ACC-funded psychological treatment.
The ACC265 does not need to tell you everything about your client.
It needs to tell you enough to understand what this person has been referred for, and what you have been authorised to provide.
PractiSpace Limited — a contracted supplier to ACC under the Psychological Services (PSB) contract. We manage referrals, purchase orders and ACC correspondence so our providers can focus on clinical work.