What Does $AUD27,650,523.80 Worth of Evidence Look Like?

Since its introduction on 1 November 2006 the Better Access initiative has improved the access and affordability to psychological services. The enthusiastic response by Australians has resulted in the production of a large and growing dataset about the way in which psychological treatments are delivered by different professionals in routine clinical practice. Given the importance of evidence-based decisions in psychological treatment service delivery there is now an opportunity to use the Better Access data to make a significant and sustained contribution to the evidence base. In this paper the features of the Better Access initiative and the Australian context that potentially place Australia as a unique and key contributor to the evidence-base movement on a global scale, are described. Areas are then suggested in which improvements to the evidence base are needed, and some of the ways in which the Better Access data might clarify these issues are outlined (including the evidence to support the $AUD27,650,523.80 of higher Medicare rebate to clinical psychologists) as well as the research opportunities the Better Access initiative has created through the rapid growth in services.