Dear NDIS,
Why are you pushing all of your therapy providers away?
We started this new exciting story with you in 2013 with hope in our hearts for a better future for people with disabilities in Australia. We wanted to be a part of that story.
We brought our many, many years of skills and experiences of working in the disability sector. We knew the old system wasn’t working. We knew the length of the waiting lists. We knew that some people were going without.
We so hoped that the NDIS would mean an end to all of that.
Many of us had originally fallen into the sector by accident – and found our passion and satisfaction for supporting people to reach their potential regardless of the challenges they faced.
And so we stayed.
We attended thousands of hours of training and development. We read hundreds of research articles and went along to conferences. We endeavoured to know about the best, latest techniques and equipment. We learned to be person and family- centred. We learned about the International Classification of Function and Disability which encouraged us to move away from a medical model to an inclusive, participation model which saw us leave our clinics and target practical solutions where people actually live, work, study and play.
We celebrated successes with the people we supported. We became frustrated with ourselves when we couldn’t find the answers.
We cried at the funerals of those we lost along the way.
We launched ourselves into the NDIS with a nervous but enthusiastic energy. We wanted to take our learning and experiences into the new world. We wanted to see the people we support achieve their goals. We wanted to stay.
NDIS started out with such promise. Hopes, dreams and aspirations for Participants. Well funded Plans meant plenty of work for everyone. This new environment looked filled with promise for everyone. Job creation, new businesses, choice for Participants.
It didn’t take long for the wheels to start to wobble.
Our colleagues in government positions were in a two and a half year limbo waiting to find out what would happen to their jobs. Many of them stayed.
Our non-government colleagues entered a world of billable hours and interventions dictated by a strictly budgeted number of hours. Their managers frantically tried to make the numbers work. Often they couldn’t. But many of them stayed.
NDIS budgets were tightened. The funding bucket is not bottomless. We got that. We worked together with Participants and families to make it work. We stayed.
The rules changed. All the time. Without notice. Often we found out about the changes by tripping over them on the website or happened to be talking to another provider. We adjusted. They still change. All the time. We keep adjusting. We stay.
The payment Portal crashed. You blamed our inability to use it properly. We survived months without pay by taking lines of credit, maxing out our credit cards and re-mortgaging our homes to pay our staff. We looked after each other. We got through it and we stayed.
Your representatives insult and disregard our professional opinions. They tell our clients that we are greedy and that they should find a student to deliver their services instead. They don’t take the time to ask us for more information or clarify our reports. In spite of this, many of us have stayed.
It became impossible to have questions answered. Our enquiries go off to Planet Escalation never to be seen again. Hours are spent on the phone and email. We created our own online communities to access information from each other. This has helped many of us to stay.
We began to farewell our colleagues who were burned out and over it. Many left for other sectors taking decades of experience with them. Some of us still stayed.
We watched our friends businesses crash when a new interpretation of a principle or rule stripped funding without notice from the Plans in the specialist services that they offered. We rallied around them and fought for their business. They have not stayed.
You decided that regardless of how many thousands of hours we have spent with babies and small children in the past, regardless of the fact that we STILL spend hours with babies and small children who are not NDIS funded, regardless of our professional registrations, regardless of the police and Working With Children Checks, we STILL require a $4 000 + audit to be able to continue to do so.
Our Behaviour Support practitioners and Support Coordinators face the same reality.
How many can afford to stay?
You have now accepted the recommendations of your Independent Pricing Review to grade Participants on the level of their ‘complexity’ which in turn will affect their therapy funding. The ‘less complex’ Participants will be funded at almost 40% less than the current rate.
What seems to have been missed here is that people have to have a disability that is already showing a certain degree of ‘complexity’ just to be eligible for the NDIS. Unlike the noted ‘comparison’ schemes such as Worksafe, Veterans Affairs and the Transport Accident Commission.
We are not sure how people with disability feel about being allocated a ‘complexity’ level. We are not even sure what ‘complex’ will mean. We don’t know who will be responsible for making the decision or what hoops the Participant will have to jump through to establish it. We only know that they will be implementing this when the new price guide starts, in just 10 weeks time.
We know how this will play out. Our professions are being devalued. Our businesses will no longer be viable.
It's going to be incredibly difficult to stay.
Choice could be a thing of the past.
While the economic cost of this reform is constantly being reviewed, it’s the emotional cost that is completely and utterly out of control.
Here is the link to the Independent Pricing Review and the NDIS response.