Speak Out August 2018

Policy & advocacy

L to R: Ms Claire Hewat, CEO, Allied Health Professions Australia; Mr Phil Calvert, President, Australian Physiotherapy Association; Ms Gail Mulcair, CEO, Speech Pathology Australia; Ms Rachel Norris, CEO, Occupational Therapy Australia; Ms Andrea Douglas, Professional Adviser, NDIS, Occupational Therapy Australia; Mr Tom Symondson, CEO, Victorian Healthcare Association; Ms Emma Liepa, Director of Policy, Victorian Healthcare Association; Mr Cris Massis, Chair, Allied Health Professions Australia; Ms Cathy Olsson, National Advisor Disability, Speech Pathology Australia

ON THURSDAY 14 JUNE 2018, SPEECH PATHOLOGY AUSTRALIA’S CEO, GAIL MULCAIR AND NATIONAL ADVISOR DISABILITY, CATHY OLSSON, APPEARED BEFORE THE JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE NDIS’S INQUIRY INTO MARKET READINESS FOR PROVISION OF SERVICES UNDER THE NDIS. THEIR OPENING STATEMENT TO THE COMMITTEE REPRESENTATIVES IS REPRINTED BELOW: Inquiry into market readiness for provision of services under the National Disability Insurance Scheme

"Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. I am the CEO of Speech Pathology Australia and I am joined today by our National Disability Advisor Cathy Olsson. Speech pathologists are university educated allied health practitioners specialising in the diagnosis, assessment, treatment and therapy for communication and swallowing disorders. Speech Pathology Australia is the national peak body for the profession in Australia, and we represent more than 8500 members. While the majority of our members certainly see the immense potential of the NDIS for people with disability, many are reluctant to register as NDIS providers, due to the costs, both direct costs and opportunity costs—by this we mean the time spent doing unpaid tasks that could have been spent doing chargeable work. The administration burden is so high that some providers have had to employ extra administrative staff, which is obviously not possible or very seldom possible for sole providers. Supporting participant readiness can also see a speech pathologist spending many hours—again, unpaid— helping and advising participants and their carers to prepare for planning meetings and to access information, explaining documents and helping them to understand their individual plans, with the need for this support being exacerbated for clients with communication difficulties, as I'm sure you can appreciate.

The scheme's additional time and monetary costs pose a very real risk to the financial viability of many of our members' small, often solo, private practices and act as a barrier to registration, and, more recently, have pushed some speech pathologists to deregister from the scheme. The recent independent pricing review's initial recommendations for tiered pricing and travel reimbursement unfortunately did little to ease our members' concerns. We surveyed our members to gauge the potential impact of the proposed tiered payment system. We found that: almost 10 per cent of respondents said that they would have to close their business; approximately 12 per cent said they would deregister and no longer see NDIS clients; 36 per cent said they would also deregister but would still see self-managed NDIS clients; and 22 per cent said they would remain registered but only see complex—as in, the proposed higher payment level—clients under the proposed three-tiered scheme. Only 13 per cent said the proposed pricing would not impact on their service provision. So, while we're certainly pleased that the implementation of the tiered pricing has been delayed to allow for further consultation— that should have occurred in the first instance—unless realistic pricing is offered, this will be yet another barrier to speech pathologists' registration and put further stress on an already thin market.

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August 2018 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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