For Patients
As a patient a complementary medicine practitioner can provide you with wholistic, natural healthcare to complement your conventional medical treatments and help you reach your full wellbeing potential. Choosing a Complementary Medicine Association (CMA) practitioner will ensure you are getting health advice from a suitably qualified healthcare professional.
Our members may be qualified in the modalities of Naturopathy, Homeopathy, Nutrition, Western Herbal Medicine, Chinese Herbal Medicine, and/or Ayurvedic Medicine.
Yes. All members of the CMA must meet strict minimum entry requirements based on both educational qualifications and experience. All members must hold qualifications that meet CMA minimum education standards at the time of application. In addition, they must also hold and maintain first aid certification, professional indemnity and public liability insurance, and ongoing continued practitioner education. Members are also recognised under schedule 1, by The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) for GST exemption as health care professionals.
Yes. The CMA insist all practising members carrying professional indemnity insurance to protect them and their patients.
Yes. All practising CMA members need to obtain 20 continued professional education (CPE) points (1 hour of education – 1 CPE point) on an annual basis. This further education may be in various forms including (but not limited to): seminar attendance, webinars, educational workshops, webinars, and conferences. Health Funds also require CPE points to be obtained by providers to continue their fund recognition.
Currently only some complementary medicine modalities are covered by private health funds – please check with your health fund for covered modalities. Nutrition consultations, for example, are covered by the following health funds:
- Australian Health management (AHM) group
- Australian Regional Health Group (ARHG) incorporating:
- C.U.A Health Limited
- HBF Health Limited
- Health Partners
- Latrobe Health Services
- Mildura District Hospital Fund
- St. Lukes Health
- Westfund
- Australian Unity
- Medibank Private
- NIB
- AAMI Health Insurance
- APIA Health Insurance
- Grand United
- QANTAS Assure
- Suncorp Health Insurance
These are currently the only private health funds that include policy cover for nutrition services provided by Nutritionists. Other health funds may cover nutritional consultations, but only when provided by a Dietician. Check your insurance before attending a consultation with a Nutritionist, to ensure you are eligible for rebates.
Although the above health funds provide cover for nutrition services, by a Nutritionist, where held face-to-face, not all will rebate consultations held via telehealth/phone or in a mobile capacity. The below table outlines the type of consultation that your fund will approve a rebate claim.
No. Health fund rebates are available for complementary medicine consultations but not for prescribed natural medicine supplements.
Patients can make formal complaints against our members if they feel a CMA practitioner has done the wrong thing. This must be in the form of a Statutory Declaration which will go before the Federal Executive for thorough investigation. Please be assured that we regard matters of unethical conduct by any member as a very serious breach of their duty to both the patient and the profession and any member found guilty of such an offence would be subject to disciplinary action. You may contact our Federal Administration Office on (07) 5580 5990 or by e-mail (admin@cma.asn.au) for further information.