Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. While we are based on the Brisbane northside, our team is spread across a couple of states and suburbs, and we do not have a physical clinic premises.

Absolutely! We understand that the assessment process comes with some high executive function demands, and that having someone assisting with these steps can be invaluable. We can send you an Authority to Disclose, Release and Exchange Information form that will mean you can officially give a trusted person the authority to liaise with the Be Seen team on your behalf. Depending on the permissions granted, we can cc them into emails to help with forms, appointment reminders, invoices, and so on.

You are welcome to make new bookings on the portal, but please contact us if you need to cancel or reschedule any appointments.

No, you'll need to see a psychiatrist to discuss medications. Our assessment can be beneficial groundwork for the psychiatrist, though. If you are looking to trial medication, we recommend talking to your GP and getting on a psychiatrist waitlist.

Our team is proudly neurodivergent (all late-identified and mostly AuDHDers). Please check out our Who We Are page to read a short bio from each of our team members, and feel free to get in contact if you have any particular questions.

Psychologists are bound by ethical guidelines and standards of practice to help ensure the safety and integrity of the communities they support. As such, a conflict of interest may arise if they were to offer therapy to people who are personally known to them or who are within their wider social circles or influence. Please check with us if you are unsure, but in general this means that the same psychologist would be unable to offer therapy to an existing client’s family members, close friends, coworkers, and so on. In some cases, seeing a different therapist within the same company may be enough of a gap, but on the other hand it may mean that a conflict of interest may arise if the psychologist’s supervisor has some personal connection to that client. Assessment is a little more flexible, as being a largely diagnostic process, the connections to other social circles will not be as relevant to the service being offered. This means that the same psychologist who assessed a client may also be able to assess that client's parent, partner, adult child or other contacts similar to above. The best way to know if a conflict of interest may affect you and the services we can offer is to get in touch with our team as early as possible in the booking process so that we can determine the best options for you. In the 'worst case scenario', we will recommend some other neuroaffirming clinics who may be able to help.

No. Our reports, recommendations and invoices are all kept to current NDIS requirements, and we can invoice directly to your NDIS plan manager under an NDIS Service Agreement, but Be Seen Psychology is not a registered NDIS provider.

Yes! While we don’t have a waitlist for assessments, we do keep a ‘cancellation list’ of people who request to be contacted should an earlier appointment become available. Please note though, that should you accept an earlier appointment, it may move deadlines for payments, forms or questionnaires forward for you. We would discuss this with you at the time, and you’d be welcome to decline in favour of your original appointment (but I mean, who doesn’t love a panic deadline?).

We sure do! We have slowly been building a list of generally recommended readings on our Resources page, curated as a team on what we have read or listened to. We’re also always keen to check out new resources as well, so if you find something that’s not on our list, please let us know and we’ll check it out!

No. At this stage, the only payment method for therapy or assessment sessions is via bank transfer – please see your invoice for details. Our Exploring Your Neurodivergent Identity workbooks can be purchased online, but that is through a separate system which unfortunately cannot be used for other services.

Nope! Our Booking Portal is live and is the best point of reference for the next available appointment. Of course you’re welcome to contact us by phone or email if you have any questions. We will try to accommodate availability whenever possible, so we’d encourage you to get in touch if a small change to the calendar may make a big difference for you (e.g. if an hour earlier/later start makes an appointment more accessible) and we’ll do our best to find some good options.

Due to the large overlap between Autism and ADHD it is generally our practice to combine the assessment for both as the process is quite similar (and does not add much more to the length or therefore cost of assessment). If you already have a diagnosis of one or the other (congratulations and welcome!), it may just be a matter of finding some areas of the assessment process familiar, and perhaps finding some helpful connections and differences between the two.

NDIS funding is specific to each person's situation and support needs, therefore no assessment can ever guarantee that a person will receive funding. Our assessment report format however does cover the necessary components (adaptive functioning questionnaire, diagnosis, recommendations for support) to help determine if you may be eligible for NDIS funding. Occasionally, NDIS may ask for a review or co-signature from a clinical psychologist. This can be booked separately after an assessment with report, and is not always required, so we have kept it as a separate service.

No. As with any diagnostic process, the assessment process helps determine neurodivergence, and can help you understand your specific profile. The report may still include recommendations or accommodations that may be helpful, but seeking assessment does not guarantee any diagnosis. If a diagnosis is not in the outcome of an assessment, the process and accompanying report may still be helpful for understanding how your experience may differ from Autism or ADHD.

The main difference will probably come down to the reasons behind getting assessed. The summary letter will still contain some recommendations and possible accommodations, and is helpful as either personal confirmation, understanding self or diagnosis, but may not be very helpful as evidence for an employer, education system, or so on. The report on the other hand goes into a lot more detail of the data from the assessment and your individual profile, and is needed if you are looking at applying for any support funding options, or if employers/universities/etc want more detailed information that you're happy to disclose. It also includes a feedback session to go over the report together with the psychologist. Essentially the summary letter is a more recent option we've added when we started finding more people who were looking for a thorough assessment but weren't interested or in need of the report itself. One logistical difference to note is that since there is usually no feedback session needed for the summary letter, we ask that the invoice be paid in full before the appointment itself, where the full report can be paid as a 50% deposit before the assessment, and the remainder paid between then and the feedback session.

Generally 2-3 hours. Please know that we welcome and encourage any movement breaks (or movement during), sensory or fidget items, or other supports that may help you to feel as comfortable as possible for the session. You might not spot our own stealthy fidget items or movements while we’re in session, but you’re welcome to ask us about our own accommodations for long appointments if it may help put you at ease.

Definitely. You’re welcome to move around, pause for breaks, eat during the session – whatever will help you feel as comfortable as possible. After all, you’re likely to be in the comfort of your own home for the appointment. There are some safety and privacy considerations to be aware of, such as not operating a vehicle at the same time, but please contact us if you would like to check anything ahead of time. If you do feel uncomfortable at any point during your session, please let the clinician know as soon as possible, so that an appropriate accommodation can be found earlier rather than later.

Typically, this will be discussed with your clinician in your assessment appointment time, as it may depend on a number of factors. They may book your feedback appointment at the time, or have admin get in touch with you to offer some options to choose from. Please note that any remaining balance would need to be paid before the feedback appointment to go through the report and discuss any questions.

Simply put, no. However, the Autism/ADHD assessment process may help identify if further assessment may be recommended. While we do not offer cognitive or academic assessments ourselves, your clinician may be able to recommend some other clinics to help.

While the Autism/ADHD assessment process may help identify if further assessment may be recommended for co-occurring diagnoses, the Autism/ADHD assessment itself will not be sufficient to provide additional diagnoses. We usually recommend most people start with an Autism/ADHD assessment (if querying this), as a plan can then be made to determine if more assessment is needed. We also offer intake sessions for $250 if you wish to discuss assessment needs in detail first. Please contact us if you would like to discuss this before making an assessment booking.

You are welcome to book an assessment intake session, particularly if there are known co-occurring diagnoses that you feel may affect your assessment, however we generally find that the majority of clients who book an intake appointment to discuss what brought them to check if an assessment is worthwhile go on then to book their assessment, but have spent more on an additional session beforehand. In general, we’d recommend going straight into the assessment, then later booking an extended assessment only if needed. In the case where it turns out that a diagnosis was not the outcome of an assessment, you will at least have a comprehensive report to help understand why certain things you were unsure of may not align with diagnostic criteria.

Let us know! We absolutely get it, and it’s largely why we send the background forms and questionnaires out ahead of time so you have the chance to think things over and make sure we’ve captured as much as possible in your assessment. There’s usually a few weeks in between your assessment and feedback session where you’re welcome to send through any extra information that may come up in the meantime while you’re processing everything.

It depends on which form. If it’s one of the Be Seen forms, like the Assessment Background History, you’re welcome to leave an asterisk for anything that will be easier to discuss with the clinician directly. How much detail you go into is largely in your hands – if it’s easier to have the full history of something down on paper so that you can spend most of the assessment time on other areas, go for it; there’s no word limit. Inversely, if it’s easier to just talk about it on the day, you're welcome to put brief dot points or put an asterisk. We’ll get in touch if there’s anything we need to check before meeting. Our aim is to make the assessment appointment feel as much like a conversation instead of a barrage of grilling interview questions, so if the paperwork helps get some of that out of the way, perfect! If it’s one of the assessment questionnaires your assessing psychologist has sent you separately, feel free to get in touch if you’re stuck. As a general rule though for the daily functioning questions, it may help to think about how much effort is involved or accommodations needed for you to complete the task in question, then answer accordingly. For example, if a question were to ask about how recently you may have felt overwhelmed on public transport, and you’re inclined to answer ‘never’ based solely on the fact that like a certain admin assistant at Be Seen, you avoid public transport at all costs because that’s your personal image of the worst way to spend even a moment of your day, then you’re probably better off answering on the higher scale. But you’re always welcome to get in touch to check!

No – While unfortunately Medicare does not cover assessment, it does mean that you do not need a referral from a GP to make an assessment booking.

Short answer: $1800 Long answer: There are a few options when booking. $1000 assessment with summary letter only - best for self-identification or some workplace/educational accommodations where only diagnosis is required (separate availability to assessment with report) $1800 assessment with report - best for those wanting further information, supporting evidence for employers/educators, or those wishing to apply for NDIS. Also includes a feedback session. Optional Clinical Psychologist review and co-sign of report, plus support needs summary for additional $400 (can be discussed and decided post assessment with report, and we encourage other avenues first). Very occasionally we need further assessment to determine a diagnosis, if this is the case this will be discussed with you, and you will be informed of all options to proceed, but it may involve additional appointments and consultation fees.

While we do not have any official payment plans through any external services, you are welcome to pay for the assessment incrementally in whichever amounts will work for you, so long as 50% of the total invoice has been paid as a deposit (for report option; 100% for summary letter only option) at least two weeks before your appointment. For example, if you were to pay in $100 instalments each fortnight, you could select an appointment via the booking portal for an assessment with report for around 16-18 weeks' time when you will have met the 50% deposit amount. We will also send you receipts after each payment with an updated balance for your records. Please keep in mind if considering this option though, that any remaining balance is due before the feedback session and report, so please take into account any deadlines or timing concerns if the second half of the assessment is being paid incrementally.

As much as possible, please! Our cancellation policy is that late cancellations for assessment appointments (within 48 hours) will incur a $250 fee if we are unable to fill the appointment time slot. We understand that life happens though, and we will make multiple attempts to get in touch with you if you have not attended the appointment. We will typically be in touch in the days leading up to your appointment if there are any outstanding forms, questionnaires or payments that may need to be completed before the appointment can begin. If, however, we have been unable to get in contact at all, we may send another email with a deadline to make contact with us before we make the decision to cancel an assessment appointment.

Yes, we do! Although please note that not all of our psychologists currently have availability outside of assessments, so you might not see the same clinician who you may have seen for the assessment appointment. Please follow this link to our Booking Portal to see Zoë’s current availability for new and/or continuing therapy clients, or contact us if you have any further questions.

We have a couple of psychologists offering therapy, though their availability is subject to change. Please contact us or check out the Booking Portal for some therapy options. Our group program, Exploring Your Neurodivergent Identity, was inspired by that sense of ‘now what?’ after diagnosis, and was designed by Haylea and Caity to explore a range of topics over eight sessions. Please check out our Group Program page for the most up to date information around these sessions. We also offer some single group sessions, such as the Reflections and Connections groups. Our Instagram or Facebook pages are probably the best point of reference for updates on when these will next be available. Alternatively, you can contact us to register your general expression of interest, and we’ll be in touch when new updates are available.

If you have a referral from your GP under a Mental Health Treatment Plan (MHTP), you may be eligible for up to 10 psychology sessions in a calendar year. Please note the following points: Your referral will typically be split between an initial 6 sessions and then a further 4-6 after a follow up visit to the GP. Your GP may send that referral directly to us, or you’re welcome to email it to us. The referral and MHTP needs to have been in place before the appointment you’re claiming for in order to be valid and claimable. You can see different psychologists under the same referral, but the number of claimable sessions will remain the same for the calendar year. Unless you’d prefer to claim personally, we generally process the rebate from our end after payment is made. It will look like a similar process at the Medicare end as if you were putting in a patient claim, but can have a faster turnaround time if we process it on your behalf at the same time we process your payment. We’ll then send you an email with a receipt of your payment as well as a copy of the Medicare claim for your reference. Once a claim has been submitted, the Medicare rebate may take anywhere between a couple of business days to two weeks to be deposited. Assessment note: The Medicare rebate is only available for therapy sessions, as Medicare does not cover assessment. The good news though is that it means you will not need a referral from a GP to make an assessment booking.

Unfortunately, Medicare doesn't allow psychologists to charge only the gap, so we have to process the full amount and then claim the rebate through Medicare. Unless you prefer to claim personally, we generally process the rebate from our end after payment is made. It will look like a similar process at the Medicare end as if you were putting in a patient claim, but can have a faster turnaround time if we process it on your behalf at the same time we process your payment, and we’'ll then send you an email with a receipt of your payment as well as a copy of the Medicare claim for your reference.

As much as possible, please! Our cancellation policy is that late cancellations (within 48 hours) may incur a 100% fee for therapy appointments. Please also note that the Medicare rebate is unable to be claimed for late cancellation. We understand that life happens though, and we will make multiple attempts to get in touch with you if you have not attended the appointment.