A straight answer to a question you have been carrying for a while

An Equal Psychology ADHD assessment is built to answer more than one question at once, because for most adults the difficulties that raise the question of ADHD rarely travel alone.

You are here because you want to know. Maybe you have suspected it for years. Maybe someone else raised it first. Either way, the question deserves a proper answer, not a quiz result.

Written and reviewed by Matthew Hallam, Registered Psychologist, AHPRA PSY0002471369. Published 6 August 2026. Last reviewed 6 August 2026. Next review 6 August 2027.

Practical info

Assessment fee: $950. One fee, everything included. There is no separate charge for the report. No Medicare rebate applies to ADHD assessment. What it involves: two 50-minute sessions, plus pre-work you complete beforehand, which is four forms arriving one at a time. Where: Kew, Croydon, or online by telehealth Australia-wide. What you receive: your written report, a letter for your GP, and a report written for a psychiatrist. The fee is for the assessment. It does not change depending on what the assessment finds.

Who this work is for: adults (18+) wanting a proper answer to whether ADHD fits, not a quiz result; people who suspect it has been missed, including those already treated for something else; people who want a written report they can take to their GP or a psychiatrist; anyone in Australia, in person at Kew or Croydon, or by telehealth.

What this work is not: it is not crisis support, and if you are in crisis please call 000 or Lifeline on 13 11 14. It is not for people under 18, as Equal Psychology assesses adults and older adults only. It is not a cognitive or learning assessment, and not a physical examination. It is not a prescription service, because psychologists do not prescribe and medication is a medical decision. It is not a guarantee of any specific outcome, including a particular diagnosis.

Our assessment approach

The assessment is built to look at more than ADHD alone, because for most adults ADHD does not travel alone. As many as 80 per cent of adults with ADHD have at least one co-occurring psychiatric condition (Choi et al., 2022). Anxiety, depression, sleep difficulty, substance use and autistic traits sit alongside it often enough that an assessment which only asks whether this is ADHD will, most of the time, return an answer that is true and incomplete at the same time.

This is also what the national guideline asks for. The Australian evidence-based clinical practice guideline for ADHD, approved by the NHMRC, says a diagnosis should not be made on rating scales alone, that observations should be drawn from more than one setting and more than one reporter, and that finding ADHD should prompt consideration of what else may be present (Australasian ADHD Professionals Association [AADPA], 2022). Our process is built to follow those recommendations, and Matthew is a member of the association that produced them.

So the assessment does not stop once it finds ADHD, and it does not stop if it does not find ADHD either. It asks what else could be producing what you are noticing, what else might be sitting alongside it, and what belongs with someone other than a psychologist. You are probably asking this question for the first time, or the first time properly, and that moment is worth using well.

Some of what looks like ADHD from the outside is not ADHD at all. The guideline asks clinicians to look for conditions that can present similarly to ADHD or make it worse, naming thyroid disease and anaemia among them (AADPA, 2022). Poor sleep, anxiety and unresolved trauma can do the same. Screening for those sits inside the process rather than beside it, because the only way to tell the difference is to ask directly.

And some of what the assessment finds belongs with your GP rather than with us. That is why it ends with a letter addressed to the person best placed to act on what was found, rather than a diagnosis handed over on its own.

A note on the word

We call this an assessment because that is the term most people know it by, and the one most people are searching for when they arrive here. Between ourselves we think of it as identification. Assessment can carry a sense of something being looked for that is wrong with you. That is not what this is. Nothing is uncovered here that was not already part of how your mind works. What changes is that it gets named, and that you leave with language for it.

References

1. Choi, W.-S., Woo, Y. S., Wang, S.-M., Lim, H. K., & Bahk, W.-M. (2022). The prevalence of psychiatric comorbidities in adult ADHD compared with non-ADHD populations: A systematic literature review. PLOS ONE, 17(11), Article e0277175. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277175
2. Australasian ADHD Professionals Association. (2022). Australian evidence-based clinical practice guideline for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). https://adhdguideline.aadpa.com.au

What actually happens

Step one: four forms, before you meet us. They arrive one at a time, so you are not handed all of it at once. Between them, they ask a genuinely large number of questions. That is deliberate, and it is the reason the assessment can do what the section above describes.

Step two: a 50-minute first session. Fifty minutes, working through what the forms could not settle: your history, your current life, and the parts that do not fit neatly into a checklist.

Step three: a second 50-minute session for results. We go through what we found, what it means, and what happens next.

What we look at

Attention now: how focus, follow-through and organisation actually work day to day. How a day actually goes: time, tasks, home, work or study, and the gap between intending and doing. Growing up: whether the pattern was there before adulthood, even if no one named it at the time. Mood, anxiety, sleep and alcohol, because each of these can produce or worsen what you are noticing. Autistic traits, screened for, not assumed either way. A short set of physical health questions, because some physical things can look like this too.

Instruments used: ASRS v1.1, WURS-45, BDEFS, CABS, DASS-21, RAADS-14 Screen, PC-PTSD-5, AUDIT-C, TAPS-1, and a developmental history form.

See a complete example

Most services describe what an assessment involves. We would rather show you. These are complete reports for two fictional clients, published exactly as a real client would receive them: the full write-up, the formulation, the reasoning behind it, and the recommendations at the end, including the parts most services would not publish.

Noah and Frankie are not two categories of ADHD. They are two different routes to the same question. Noah suspected it for years, built a business around compensating for it, and everything else screens negative. Frankie was treated for anxiety for several years before anyone asked whether ADHD was part of the picture, and the report has to work through what belongs to which.

Reading both shows the assessment doing the work described above, not just describing it. Read Noah and Frankie's reports.

Who conducts the assessment

Matthew Hallam, Registered Psychologist (AHPRA PSY0002471369), conducts ADHD assessments at Equal Psychology and also works with adults individually in ongoing therapy, whether or not an assessment is part of that. He is a member of the Australasian ADHD Professionals Association and works primarily with adult ADHD and neurodiversity.

How we use AI, and where we do not

Some of the tools used to prepare your report are AI-assisted. We say this because you are entitled to know how your report was produced, and because it affects the fee: lower production cost is one of the factors in how the assessment is priced.

What the tools do: help summarise the pre-work you complete, and help draft sections of the written report.

What they do not do: diagnose you. Every finding is checked against the source material by a psychologist, and every diagnostic criterion is worked through with you in conversation.

What happens afterwards

Your report is yours to use. Most people take it to their GP. In some states, GPs can now diagnose and prescribe for adult ADHD directly. The rules differ by state and continue to change, so we will not promise what will happen next, only that the report gives that conversation something to start from.

Every assessment also includes a report written for a psychiatrist. You receive it whether or not you end up needing one, because prescribing pathways differ by state and a specialist opinion is often genuinely useful. A psychologist can assess and diagnose ADHD, but prescribing sits with a doctor, and we will say plainly where each fits for you.

If you would like psychological support afterwards, it is available and entirely optional. If you are not sure yet, a Meet and Greet is a low-commitment way to talk it through first: free, 15 minutes, online or in-person, no obligation.

Common questions

What if the answer is no? The fee stays the same either way. The report still sets out what was found, what accounts for the difficulties you brought in, and where that leaves you.

Can I use this to get medication? The report is written to support a conversation with your GP or a psychiatrist about next steps, including medication where relevant. We do not prescribe.

Do I have to complete all the questionnaires? Yes. They are what allows the assessment to look at more than ADHD on its own, which is the reason the process works the way it does.

Who sees my report? You do, and your GP if you choose to share it. We do not send it anywhere without your direction.

Do I need someone to come with me? No, though an informant such as a parent or partner can add useful history if one is available and willing.

Is this valid interstate? Yes. The assessment is available by telehealth Australia-wide.

Can I claim any of it back? No Medicare rebate applies to ADHD assessment.

Book an assessment, or start with a Meet and Greet: free, 15 minutes, online or in-person, no obligation. Book an assessment. Book a Meet and Greet.