Page 4292 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
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We do not do that in all areas, and we will not be doing that in all areas of professional regulation. In most areas there are fairly well established fee structures. People understand what they are getting into. This is an area where there is no standard fee concept. In the past there have been some operators who leave quite a bit to be desired. People can be conned into thinking they are dealing with specialist medical practitioners; whereas in fact they are dealing with somebody with, in some cases, perhaps no qualifications at all. So, we have developed a structure which, basically, says that you do have a period in which you can seek an accounting of the fee.
You could maybe argue whether six months is too long. Again, we would say that you may often be dealing with people who are quite vulnerable. They have been in a situation where they have been dealing with a psychologist. They have felt, obviously, that they are in a particular state of need; so we have given a longish period for people, having received the bill, to seek an accounting of the bill, if they object to it, and they cannot be sued for that unpaid bill within that six months period. In most cases the bill is going to be paid voluntarily within time. If you resort to litigation to get your bill paid, it is unlikely that it is going to be sorted out within six months anyway, because of the process of court delays; so I would reject any view that this is onerous or harsh.
You may, in principle, say that we should never have fee issues dealt with in professional registration or control legislation, but we have done that in some areas of the legal profession for many years. We would say, because of the generally acknowledged particular danger of psychologists - it is an area where there have been people with no qualifications at all practising, and the public perhaps is not as aware as they should be about whom they are dealing with and what a psychologist is as opposed to what a specialist psychiatrist is - there should be particular care taken, and our structure there is, basically, to say, "You have a period in which you can seek an accounting of the bill, and that will be reviewed by the board".
The Government has also circulated a minor amendment to pick up an error that Ms Szuty pointed out. There is a definition of medical practitioner in clause 3 but no reference to medical practitioner. Mr Moore, this is not some dark or sinister plot to abolish the profession of medical practitioner. It is just that when you put Bills like this together you tend to pick up the standard form definition clause that is used in other Bills, and in other Bills medical practitioners are defined and do come into the structure. They did not here. We picked up the standard form clause, and that is why it is there. There is no sinister plot there; it was merely a clerical oversight. I thank members for their general support for the Bill.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
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