Disability service providers across the city are preparing for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which rolls out on July 1.
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The long-awaited scheme, hailed as a “once-in-a-generation reform”, will give people with disabilities the power to choose how they access services.
For smaller service providers like Bidgeekids, the NDIS will present opportunities and challenges, according to owner and occupational therapist Joanna Caton.
“I think the NDIS is a really good idea, mainly because it will give people with a disability choices about how they receive services, set their own goals and plan for them,” Mrs Caton said.
“At the moment, they might have their own goals, but not be able to access any funding to reach them.”
Under the existing system, service providers apply to various government bodies for funding, which is then allocated based on a wide range of factors. However, the NDIS takes a needs-based approach to people with a disability, allocating funding to help them live ordinary lives.
Mrs Caton said theoretically, it would be a more equitable system, but one of the biggest concerns for smaller services was cash flow.
“At the moment the systems we’re working with are pretty tried and true, we know how they work and how we get paid, but there’s just so much unknown about how the NDIS will work in practice,” she said.
“We don’t know how long it will take clients on existing funding schemes to roll over and once they do we don’t know how easy it will be to get paid. We go into these professions because we want to help people, but I’ve had to spend a lot of time educating myself about the business too.”
However, there was also a freedom for smaller services that had spent years marketing themselves as alternatives to more established providers.
“We can work how we want to work and not have to follow a bureaucracy with its limitations,” Mrs Caton said.
While many are optimistic about the $22 billion scheme, it is not without its critics, with data from the National Disability Insurance Agency’s latest quarterly report revealing complaints to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal increased by 19 per cent since the previous quarter.