NDIS marketplace barriers: a provider’s rollout perspective

_Jane Morrell ___is Founder and CEO of Carer Solutions Australia. Jane’s passion for helping people lent itself to the development of her company currently operating statewide within Victoria and Tasmania.

As the National Disability Insurance Agency has been stating from the outset, “We are moving to a consumer driven marketplace”. This means businesses will be encouraged to enter the NDIS service delivery market and provide people with disability with a host of innovative options.

Exciting for new businesses – Yes.

Opportunities to further stimulate the economy – Yes.

Encouraging innovation – Yes.

All roads point to the NDIS being the most positive reform for the sector since Medicare.

Unfortunately, in our experience, the reality has been quite the opposite. While our organisation isn’t new to the sector (we are closing in on six years of operation), much of what we have faced upon introduction of this ‘new world’ has been – No.

No, in relation to a scheme that is supporting us as it should.  

No, to a scheme design that lends itself to the introduction of flexible and innovative options for people with disability that places them central to the decisions they should be making – around how they live their own lives.

I would like to stipulate here that the fault lies within the design, not the ideology behind the scheme itself. Design and timing has forced the agency to register businesses and measure their compliance against state regulations that either no longer apply or have been customised with a traditional service delivery model that has zero relevance to the more ‘innovative’ and ‘creative’ models of the new millennium.

Unfortunately, the rules and regulations pertaining to NDIS service registration isn’t something the government considered highly, when designing a scheme which encouraged a “consumer driven marketplace and the encouragement of choice and control” for people with disability.

This proves to be a greater challenge when you have existing clients to whom you are 100% committed. We wish to deliver our loyal partners a seamless service and this becomes near impossible when the scheme won’t yet recognise you as a registered service provider.

Thankfully, we have had the support of the NDS (National Disability Service) in developing a ‘work-around’ for our existing clients and any new ones who join our service until a national set of registration standards applies. (Registration standards which we are told could be a few years away. Not helpful.)

We, like most organisations, recognise the importance of such an enormous change to our sector and know that such change is always going to be fraught with hiccups and “the things we didn’t think about” along the way…

However, making organisations attempt to comply with state regulations that don’t fit, and not offering them an alternative for perhaps a few years, seems ludicrous in 2017! (Especially, when we have an existing client base totally reliant on the service we provide and we are an organisation that is fully committed to providing it with minimal client disruption.)

The NDIS marketplace will ultimately benefit the people with disability – YES! But a removal of the barriers and hoops we must jump through to assist our clients to access such a marketplace would be helpful.

A hopeful and committed,

Carer Solutions Australia.