2019-2020 Price Guide Released
The NDIA have released the new Price Guides, which will come into effect on 1 July, 2019. All states, territories and remote areas will now have a single Price Guide which is now called a Support Catalogue.
Below is a summary of where there are price increases:
- Remote and very remote loadings;
- Personal care and community access;
- Capacity building supports, including support coordination and therapy; and
- Consumables, Assistive Technology and Home Modification and Specialist Disability Accommodation
Changes have also been made around; a new Temporary Transformation Payment (TTP), detail about additional charges that can be applied and additional columns, travel, cancellations, therapy, low cost assistive technology (AT), non face-to-face supports, non-billable tasks, and automatic adjustment for the increase in prices.
Participants who use supports eligible for the Temporary Transformation Payment (TTP) have had their packages indexed to include the price rises announced in March, wage indexation and the Consumer Price Index, and the TTP.
QDN commends the Morrison Government and new NDIA minister for listening to the concerns raised by people with disability, families and providers around the pricing impacting upon the quality, capacity and range of services delivering supports. QDN would like to see an increased investment in training funding for workers across service types, travel allowances for workers travelling between jobs and line items around individual capacity building. QDN believes that while the price increases are welcome, they are complex and significant changes that are happening quickly and stress the importance of providers engaging with participants about these changes before increasing payment claims.
To support market growth some prices for therapeutic supports are 15% higher in the Northern Territory, Western Australia, Tasmania and South Australia than in the Eastern states.
Rules around additional charges will also apply to self-managed funds with registered providers not being allowed to charge people self-managing their funds any additional fees such as credit card surcharges, ‘gap’ fees, late payment fees or cancellation fees outside of the NDIS prescribed rules.
The February Price Guide update introduced a third tier of pricing for personal care and community access, sometimes called “very high intensity”. If support is delivered by a more highly skilled or experienced worker then the provider can consider applying the Level 3 price cap, with the participant’s prior agreement. Participants must agree to be charged Level 3 prices.