ACT Government Workers Compensation — How ACTPS Claims Work
Hurt at work as a nurse, teacher or territory public servant? Your claim runs differently from the rest of Canberra: it sits under the Commonwealth SRC Act, administered by EML, not the ACT private scheme. That's exactly the system we work in.
Almost everything written about workers compensation in Canberra is about the wrong scheme for you. Here is how your claim actually works, and how our doctors, psychologists and physiotherapists carry it, in person in Canberra or by telehealth.
Your Claim Follows Different Rules, and We Know Them
ACT Government employees sit in a scheme arrangement that almost no general advice covers, which is why so many ACTPS claims start in the wrong place. Yours doesn't have to. Here's where it actually sits, and we handle it from the first call.
Not the ACT private scheme
The Workers Compensation Act 1951 (ACT), WorkSafe ACT and the five licensed insurers cover Canberra’s private sector. None of it applies to ACTPS claims. The deadlines and certificates are different.
Not managed day to day by Comcare
Your claim runs under the same Commonwealth statute as APS claims, but Comcare is not your claims manager. The ACT Government self-insures, and EML administers claims on its behalf.
The actual answer
The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cwlth). The ACT Government has been a self-insured licensee since March 2019. The current licence runs to February 2027 and the ACT Government has applied to renew it; EML has already been awarded a new ten-year claims-management contract from early 2027. Nothing in that changes your entitlements (position as at August 2026).
Who counts as ACTPS? Employees of ACT Government directorates and agencies: public hospital nurses and midwives, public school teachers, and territory public servants across the directorates. Who does not: Commonwealth (APS) employees are under Comcare workers compensation; police in Canberra are AFP, which makes them Commonwealth employees, so Comcare as well; private-sector workers are under the ACT workers compensation scheme; and serving ADF members sit outside all of these. Military compensation runs through DVA under the MRCA. Not sure where you land? Use our which-scheme checker. It takes under a minute.
The ACTPS Claim Path, Step by Step
The path is fixed by the SRC Act and the ACT Government’s self-insurance arrangements. Six steps, from injury to decision.
Report the injury to your supervisor
Follow your directorate’s reporting procedure and report early. The claim clock only helps you once the paper trail exists.
Get a certificate of capacity from a doctor
Under the SRC Act, only a legally qualified medical practitioner — a GP or a specialist such as a psychiatrist — can complete it. A psychologist cannot certify time off work. Our doctors write these certificates every week, and see Canberra patients in person for the appointments that produce them.
Lodge the claim form
Lodged online with the certificate attached. For a psychological injury claim, ACTPS guidance also asks for a personal statement of the events you say contributed to the condition.
An EML claims manager takes the file
EML determines the claim under the SRC Act. Statutory timeframes apply: 20 calendar days for injury claims, 60 for disease claims. Psychological claims are determined as disease claims.
Treatment is approved, then delivered
The claims manager approves treatment. Psychology needs a doctor’s referral and directive first; the scheme pattern is five initial sessions (up to 60 minutes each) before a Psychology Treatment Plan is required, with longer sessions needing prior approval. As a self-insured licensee, EML’s treatment-plan and invoicing mechanics can vary from Comcare’s. We confirm the details with your claims manager rather than guessing.
If you disagree: reconsideration, then the ART
Request reconsideration within 30 days of the determination; if the outcome still is not right, apply to the Administrative Review Tribunal within 60 days. There is no application fee for workers compensation matters.
The ACTPS exception most people miss
Treatment only, no time off work? You may not need a doctor’s certificate.
ACT Government workers compensation guidance lists, among the documents needed to lodge a claim, a certificate from your treating practitioner where you are claiming for chiropractic, physiotherapy, dentistry or osteopathic treatment and are not claiming time off work. For a strained back that needs six weeks of physiotherapy but no lost shifts, that is a materially shorter path than the standard one.
Read it narrowly, because it is written narrowly. It covers those four services and no others, and it does not extend to psychology. The condition is strict too: claim any time off work and you are back to a certificate of capacity from a doctor. Our physiotherapists and our doctors work the same file, so if your capacity changes mid-claim the certificate side is already with people who know the history.
What the SRC Act pays while you are off work
Incapacity payments run at 100% of your normal weekly earnings, less any actual earnings, for the first 45 weeks (counted cumulatively, not consecutively). After 45 weeks the rate steps down: 75% of normal weekly earnings if you are not working, scaling from 80% back up to 100% depending on the proportion of your normal hours you have returned to. Reasonable medical treatment for the accepted condition is covered on top.
Quick Facts: ACTPS Claims
EML
Administers every ACTPS claim, not WorkSafe ACT and not day-to-day Comcare.
60 days
The statutory window to determine a disease claim, which is the category psychological claims fall into.
100%
Of normal weekly earnings (less actual earnings) for the first 45 weeks of incapacity.
Doctor-only
Certificates of capacity must come from a GP or specialist. A psychologist cannot certify time off work.
30 days
Your window to request reconsideration of a determination you disagree with.
Psychological Injury Claims for ACTPS Workers
The same SRC Act rules that govern Commonwealth psychological claims govern yours. Here's what the tests that decide most of them mean for you, in plain language.
Under the SRC Act, a psychological condition is determined as a disease, which means employment must have contributed to it to a significant degree. The Act defines that as substantially more than material. Your doctor’s certificate and the supporting diagnosis carry that question, which is why the first medical appointment does so much of the work.
The second test is the exclusion: injuries suffered as a result of reasonable administrative action taken in a reasonable manner are not compensable. That covers performance appraisals, counselling, suspension and disciplinary processes, and things reasonably done in connection with them. Many psychological claims turn on precisely this line: whether the events behind the condition were administrative action at all, and whether what was done was reasonable and reasonably carried out. Causes outside that list (workplace bullying and harassment, and sustained work pressure, the most commonly accepted causes on the scheme’s published data) remain claimable.
The scale is worth knowing plainly. Across the Commonwealth scheme your claim runs under, psychological claims are roughly a third of intake for the Australian Public Service, on Comcare’s scheme dashboard, financial year to date at 30 September 2025. Comcare’s psychological injury factsheet records median time off work above 31 weeks, and its published return-to-work rate for psychological claims sat in the 50s per cent in 2024-25, against high-80s for physical injuries. None of that changes what you are entitled to. It does mean the paperwork, the diagnosis and the treatment plan deserve to be done carefully, by people who do them often.
One more rule specific to first responders: where a current or former ACT Government first responder — firefighters, ambulance officers, emergency services communications operators — is diagnosed with PTSD (suffered or aggravated on or after 15 December 2023), employment is presumed to have contributed to a significant degree. The diagnosis can come from a psychologist or a doctor, though the claim itself still needs a doctor’s certificate. For the broader Commonwealth picture (the same statute from the APS side), see our Comcare workers compensation guide, and for how psychology treatment runs under that framework, our Comcare psychologist page.
How WorkCover Hub Helps With ACTPS Claims
WorkCover Hub is a clinic: our doctors, our psychologists and our physiotherapists on one file, with people who work this scheme’s paperwork every week alongside them. For an SRC Act claim that pairing is not a convenience, it is the structure the scheme demands: the certificate must come from a doctor, and psychology treatment cannot be funded without a doctor’s referral and directive. We provide both ends of that chain in-house.
We see ACTPS patients in person in Canberra and by telehealth. Where a certificate of capacity is part of the appointment, we book you in person. Neither the SRC Act nor Comcare’s guidance addresses consultation modality for certificates, and we would rather not have your claim be the first to find out what that silence means.
- ✓Certificates with our doctors: the certificate of capacity an ACTPS claim requires, with the diagnosis and capacity assessment written to what the SRC Act asks for
- ✓Referral and directive handled in-house: the doctor’s paperwork that makes psychology treatment fundable, written by the same clinic that provides the treatment
- ✓Treatment with our psychologists: in person in Canberra or by telehealth, under the SRC Act’s published psychology framework, with telehealth psychology published at parity with in-person rates on the Comcare schedule; for ACTPS claims we confirm arrangements with your EML claims manager before anything is booked
- ✓Physiotherapy on the same claim: including the treatment-only path where you are claiming chiropractic, physiotherapy, dentistry or osteopathic treatment and no time off work, and a treating-practitioner certificate is what ACT Government guidance asks for
- ✓The right scheme, first: we ask who you work for before any paperwork starts, so an ACTPS claim is not sent down the private-scheme path
ACT Government Workers Compensation FAQs
Working for the Commonwealth rather than the territory? The claim rules sit in our Comcare workers compensation guide. Private sector? Start with our complete guide to workers compensation in Canberra and the ACT. Still unsure which applies? Check which scheme covers you.
Injured Working for the ACT Government?
Certificate appointments in person in Canberra; referrals and treatment in person or by telehealth, from one clinic that knows which scheme you are actually in.
Call (02) 7238 7379