Disability service providers concerned about rising costs
Australia's peak body for disability service providers is warning many organisations may have to close their doors due to rising costs.
Transcript
00:00 The National Disability Services, which is, as you say, the peak body that looks after
00:06 non-government providers, says that in a recent survey, 83% of its members, and they total
00:12 more than 300 across the nation, expressed real concern about their ability to continue
00:17 developing and offering their services.
00:21 Now we've heard that that is because they believe that the price-fixing mechanism at
00:25 the moment is simply unsustainable, that these price limits that are set for particular NDIS
00:31 services simply aren't keeping up with rising inflation and also the soaring cost of insurance
00:36 premiums.
00:37 In fact, the survey also found that 32% of providers had trouble accessing insurance
00:43 required to run their disability services in the past 12 months, and also 59% had said
00:51 that they are concerned about their capacity to be able to tool up when the NDIA, which
00:56 is the insurance authority, is going to roll out a new payment system, and they're concerned
01:03 that they won't have the budgets to be able to do that as well.
01:07 Now just in terms of the major point, that 83% that are really concerned that they might
01:12 have to fold, that is actually up from last year when the level of concern was around
01:17 60%, so it is quite a significant jump.
01:20 We've heard from one service in the Mornington Peninsula here in Victoria which provides
01:25 support for children with additional needs, and they say that they haven't actually had
01:30 any sort of price increase since 2019.
01:32 However, in the same time, their operating costs have gone up by some 36%, so they say
01:38 it's very difficult for them to be able to bear those costs when they're unable to adjust
01:42 their prices.
01:43 And they say that in the end, it's going to be the children who suffer who don't get that
01:47 support from their organisation if they can no longer remain viable, and they will then
01:52 be on those waiting lists.
01:53 We've also heard from a Queensland-based organisation, Home Care Nurses.
01:58 Now they say that they are currently owed more than half a million dollars from the
02:03 NDIS, and they say that they understand that there are these checks and balances that have
02:07 to happen to guard against fraudulent activity.
02:10 However, it does mean that those ones and organisations that are doing the right thing,
02:16 well they're left to pick up the slack.
02:17 And this is something that we've heard as well from the CEO of National Disability Services.
02:22 He says that the government talks a lot about cracking down on those fraudsters, but there
02:27 also needs to be extra support for those organisations that are doing the right thing.
02:33 And he's warning that without the federal government coming in and looking at an urgent
02:38 out-of-cycle pricing change, that there is going to be a mass exodus from the system,
02:43 and that means that you're going to lose a lot of those quality support providers that
02:47 will be squeezed out.
02:49 And he also says that this means that the long waiting lists that are already increasing
02:54 are going to be even further lengthened, and that means that those disabled clients will
02:59 find it even harder to get the support that they need.
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