Growth and AI visibility for psychology practices
Utilisation, not impressions.
Psychology practice marketing, done from the owner's side of the diary: utilisation by clinician, intake that books a Better Access referral the same day, pages that state fees and wait times plainly, and the practice named when a client asks Google or ChatGPT for a psychologist who works with their presentation. Go Forth Digital does this for psychology practices across Australia, and checks every page against the PsyBA guidelines.
Go Forth Digital is run by a founder with ten years in B2B sales and growth, who has co-owned a gym and carried its P&L, and spent five years building websites and systems for health and wellness businesses.
What keeps a psychology practice owner up
Two clinicians with a three-month waitlist, two with Thursday afternoons empty, and a front desk returning yesterday's calls.
Demand is not the problem. The Department of Health's supply and demand study puts the psychology workforce 57.3% short of demand in 2025 once unmet need is counted, widening to 96.6% by 2038 (Psychology Supply and Demand Compendium, April 2026). The problem is where the demand lands. Utilisation by clinician is the first number we ask for, because the gap between the fullest and emptiest diary is the growth. Intake speed is the second: a mental health treatment plan referral that waits four days for a call-back books elsewhere.
Then the mix. Better Access clients, NDIS psychosocial participants, private clients and health fund clients each arrive through a different door, with a different question, and each needs a different page and a different follow-up. Assessment demand for ADHD and autism sits on top, and it is an intake problem before it is a marketing one.
What that looks like for a psychology practice
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Get found
When a client searches Google or asks ChatGPT for a psychologist who works with their presentation and takes their funding, your practice is in the answer. Presentation pages, clinician pages and a Google Business Profile that says who has capacity.
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Get booked
Referrals and enquiries go to the clinician with capacity and into a first session without the front desk chasing. Intake captures the treatment plan before the first call, not after the third.
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Get your hours back
GP reports under Better Access, NDIS progress reports and assessment write-ups take clinician hours today. A draft from the clinician's own notes, reviewed and signed by the clinician, hands those hours back as sessions.
Not sure where to start? Tell us what’s going on in your practice. Catherine replies within one working day with what to fix first. Tell us what you need
What we do first for a psychology practice
Fees, wait times and who sees what, on the page, before anything else. A quarter of the people who need you are deciding on cost, and a page that hides the gap loses them to one that does not.
The Better Access page states the rebate for a clinical psychologist and a registered psychologist ($149.05 and $101.55 for a 50-minute session from 1 July 2026 (MBS Online, items 80010 and 80110)), your fee, the gap, and the ten sessions a calendar year the plan allows (Department of Health, March 2026). The assessment page states the sessions, the report and the price. The clinician pages state who works with what and who has capacity this month. Then intake routes each enquiry by funding and presentation to the diary that can take it.
We write titles the way the Board reads them. "Clinical psychologist" only for a clinician with the endorsement; "provisional psychologist" for provisional registrants, no other title (Psychology Board of Australia). No "specialist". No testimonials. Compliance is one line of the job, not the job; the rest is utilisation.
Funding streams we work inside
Each funding stream needs its own page, its own intake question and its own follow-up.
- Medicare Better Access
- Referral-led intake with a GP mental health treatment plan attached. The page states the rebate, the gap and the session count; intake captures the plan and the referral date before the first call, and the recall lands before the tenth session, not after it.
- NDIS psychosocial
- Support coordinator referrals that need registration status, capacity and report turnaround visible on the page. The 2026-27 price rise lifts margin; report drafting support is where the hours come back. Provisional psychologists can see participants under supervision, with consent in the service agreement (NDIA, updated 24 August 2026).
- Private pay
- Clients who searched a presentation and a suburb, or asked an AI. The page answers fees, wait and what a first session involves, and books online for the appointment types you open.
- Health fund
- Extras claims processed at the desk. Intake asks the fund up front so the front desk does not chase it after the session.
Who it suits, and who it does not
It suits practices where at least one diary is empty on a day another is full.
It suits practices running Better Access and NDIS psychosocial side by side. It suits practices adding provisional psychologists or new associates who need a diary filled in their first quarter. It suits telehealth practices competing nationally on specific presentations.
It does not suit a solo psychologist with a waitlist; complete the Google Business Profile, publish your fees, and spend the money on a second clinician. It does not suit a practice that wants more enquiries while every clinician is full; the first buy there is hours back, not marketing. And it does not suit anyone who wants a page that calls the practice "leading" or the clinicians "specialists"; the Board reads those pages too. For what the wider market charges, read what allied health marketing costs in Australia.
Frequently asked questions
Can a psychology practice use testimonials or Google reviews?
Testimonials, no. Section 133 of the National Law prohibits them in your advertising, and a review you copy onto your own website becomes advertising the moment you publish it (Ahpra advertising guidelines, December 2020). Google reviews are different. Ahpra's position is that reviews on a platform you do not control are not yours to remove, so a practice can ask every client for a review, without selecting or rewarding, and leave the replies on Google. What does more for intake than either is a plain page: who you see, what a first session involves, fees, rebates and wait times. Those pages are also what AI answers quote.
How do we take ADHD and autism assessment enquiries without a waitlist we cannot serve?
Publish the pathway and the price, then route. A secret-shopper study of 736 Australian clinicians found only 39.2% of psychologists were accepting new adult ADHD assessment clients, with a median wait of under three weeks for those who were, and a median assessment cost of $1,550 (Journal of Attention Disorders, 25 February 2026). The clients ringing around are asking two questions: are you taking new clients, and what does it cost. A page that answers both, with the sessions and the report described, turns the phone calls into booked assessments and sends the ones you cannot take to a stated wait or a referral, without the front desk doing it by hand. Demand is not the constraint. Intake is.
Can we grow with provisional psychologists?
Yes, in two of the four funding streams. Better Access items require general registration, so a provisional psychologist cannot claim them (MBS Online, note MN.7.1). The NDIA allows provisional psychologists to see participants under the supervision of a registered provider, with the arrangement and any lower rate written into the service agreement. Private clients can choose a lower fee with a provisional psychologist if the page says so plainly. So the diary fills from NDIS psychosocial and private work while the provisional completes registration. The page carries the title "provisional psychologist" and nothing grander, and states the supervision arrangement. We have watched practices skip that line; the Board does not.
Does this work for telehealth-only practices?
Yes. Better Access video and phone items remain current for individual sessions, with no distance rule for individual services (MBS Online, updated 13 March 2025), so a telehealth practice competes nationally on presentation rather than suburb. That favours specific pages: a psychologist for a named presentation who takes plan referrals with a short wait. The Google Business Profile still matters for the registered address, and the clinician pages carry the rest. The arithmetic is the same as a rooms practice: utilisation by clinician, enquiries per week, and how many become a first session.
We take NDIS psychosocial participants. Does the price rise help?
It lifts margin. The 2026-27 price limit for psychology rose to $252.99 an hour from $232.99, because, in the NDIA's words as reported by the APS, the previous rate did not reflect market rates for psychologists (APS, 23 June 2026). It does not fill a slot by itself. The practices that benefit are the ones whose page tells a support coordinator the three things they check (registration, capacity, report turnaround), whose intake takes the referral the same day, and whose report writing does not eat the extra twenty dollars. We work on all three, and we will tell you if the reform announcements of April 2026 change the picture for your mix.
What does it cost for a psychology practice?
Pricing is quote-based and set in ranges, all ex GST: one-off projects from $1,500 to $10,000, ongoing work on one service from $800 to $6,500 a month, and full-service retainers from $3,000 to $8,000 a month, on a three-month initial term then rolling. Work it from your own numbers: a registered psychologist on Better Access bills a fee above the $101.55 benefit, a clinical psychologist above $149.05, and an NDIS hour is $252.99. A handful of additional booked sessions a month across the practice recovers the retainer. If it does not, we say so in the first conversation and you keep the numbers. Tell us what you need and we will quote it in writing. Our article on what allied health marketing costs in Australia sets out what moves a quote up or down.
Tell us what you need
You know your business. We know how to get it found and booked. Tell us what you need help with, we’ll find what’s in the way and clear it, so you can go forth.
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