Seo-yun's story

Seo-yun applied to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) for general registration as an occupational therapist. In total, it took six months for Seo-yun’s registration application to be finalised. This delay was largely because four months passed before Seo-yun’s application was allocated to a case manager for assessment.

Seo-yun let Ahpra know on multiple occasions that she was experiencing financial hardship because she was unable to work as an occupational therapist while waiting for her registration to be approved. Despite these concerns, Ahpra advised Seo-yun that she was not eligible for a partial refund of her registration fee.

Seo-yun complained to our office that the six-month period to assess and finalise her application for registration was not reasonable. She felt that Ahpra ought to provide her with a partial refund of her registration fee because she was unable to practise for six months and therefore experienced financial hardship.

We made preliminary enquiries with Ahpra and it agreed to refund Seo-yun’s registration application fee as a one-off gesture of good will.

Ahpra also acknowledged the suggestion (as previously made by our office) that Ahpra review its policies in relation to financial hardship. Ahpra confirmed that work had begun on drafting a new financial hardship policy and that relevant stakeholders would be consulted as part of this process.