The long awaited NDIS Provider Registration and Practice Standards have finally dropped. Here we will talk about what they mean for Allied Health and Support Coordination.
A Quick Background
The NDIS began back in 2013 with a trial in a few geographical areas across Australia. For Providers, registration to deliver services under the NDIS was subject to meeting state based rules. Incidents were investigated by state based agencies such as the Ombudsman. This means that there have been issues of consistency as well as barriers for Providers to register their business across different states.
It has long been identified that there needs to be a National body overseeing the safety and quality of services being delivered across Australia. The NDIS Commission has been set up in response to this and these Standards are a huge step towards National registration and consistency.
The nation will gradually transition from state based registration with NSW and South Australia to start in July 2018 with the rest of the country to follow in the following years.
What does this mean?
Providers who are currently registered with the NDIS will have their registration transferred to the National register automatically. If the National requirements are different to the state based requirements there will be a transition period with a time frame for businesses to complete these tasks. We assume that businesses registering for the first time will be subject to the new National registration requirements at the time of application.
The Standards
The Standards contain information about how Providers will be assessed before being approved as an NDIS Provider.
Here are the main points.
1. There is a focus on monitoring Restricted Practice with detailed definition and two modules focused on behavior support
2. Everyone will be audited. There are two types of audit:
a. Verification: the lighter touch option, probably via desktop but will still require provision of evidence against Schedule 8 (see below)
b. Certification: a full site audit including interviews with staff and clients and provision of evidence against some or all of Schedule 1 plus any other relevant Schedules which will depend on the supports that a business is applying to provide
3. Providers MUST be registered if they are providing
a. Specialist Disability Accommodation
b. Support to people who are under a Restrictive Practice
c. Specialist behavior support – includes providing a behavior support assessment and creating a behavior support plan
d. It seems there are some exclusions to this for some Providers who are registered under the Aged Care Act (more research needed here)
This means that Participants who are funded against these items will not be able to self or plan manage these items.
4. There are general suitability checks for Providers, such as prior complaints, criminal behavior; financial history (bankruptcy); a range of adverse findings under various business or WHS agencies; evidence of fraud or similar
5. There are general suitability checks for each of your Key Personnel, as above
6. Providers also have rights with regards to changes that may be made to registration status in terms of notice given by the Commission, generally applicable if an issue comes their attention that implies the business is not meeting the Standards
7. A business that is a Body Corporate will be required to undergo Certification regardless of their registration group.
(definition according to ASIC: ‘A company is a body corporate registered in Australia by ASIC under the Corporations Act (section 9 of the Corporations Act has a detailed legal definition). Each company is allocated a unique ACN.’)
8. In terms of Allied Health and Support Coordination the relevant registration groups and their audit requirements are:
a. Therapeutic Supports: Verification (for businesses which are not Body Corporate)
b. Early Childhood Supports : Certification (there are some concessions for sole pracs and partnerships, see below)
c. Specialist Behaviour Support: certification
d. Implement behavior support Plans (may be more targeted at support work): Certification
e. Specialist Support Coordination: Certification
f. Community nursing care: verification
g. Specialized hearing support: verification
h. Exercise physiology: verification
9. There will be a transition period for businesses to comply with the new requirements. This has not been defined.
The Schedules
There are 8 Schedules which contain the specific elements that a Provider will be audited against, these will be specific to the Supports that a Provider offers.
Schedule 1 and 8 seem to be the most commonly required within an audit.
Businesses requiring only Verification (sole traders and partnerships not offering high risk supports) will have to provide evidence against Schedule 8.
Businesses who are considered to be a body corporate and not offering high risk supports will be assessed against Schedule 1.
Businesses who are offering high risk supports will be assessed against Schedule 1 PLUS the relevant specialist Schedules.
Schedule 1: this is the Core component which covers the areas of Rights, Governance and Management, Provision of Supports and Support Provision Environment. Any business requiring Certification will complete some or all of this Schedule.
Schedule 2: High intensity daily personal activities
Schedule 3: Specialist Behaviour Support
Schedule 4: Implementing behavior support plans
Schedule 5: Early Childhood Supports
Schedule 6: Specialised support Coordination
Schedule 7: Specialist Disability Accommodation
Schedule 8: Verification
Lighter burden for sole practitioners and partnerships
There seems to have been some effort to make the load a little lighter for sole traders and partnerships.
For those not offering any of the ‘high risk’ supports (those requiring Certification, above), the less arduous and less expensive Verification audit will be required. This requires providing evidence against Schedule 8.
For those who are offering high risk supports, Certification will still be required however for Early Childhood it appears as though there will be a reduced number of elements from the Core Schedule (Schedule 1) that a business would need to provide evidence for in addition to all of Schedule 5.
What we are still waiting for
There are a few things that we still don't know.
We don't know how much Certification is going to cost. This is a huge anxiety for many small businesses given the state based audits were upwards of $4000.
There has been discussion that a grant may be available to support businesses to complete the Certification process and we have yet to see any detail on this.
An approved list of auditors will be provided at some point in time, we assume when the new NDIS Commission website is up and running.
There is reference in the Standards document to NDIS Guidelines (Quality Indicators) which you can find at this link. More to come on this one.
Our support
We have partnered with Nacre Consulting to provide a Business Bootcamp workshop on Saturday June 16th. While this will not be entirely focused on the Quality and Safeguards changes we have dedicated a portion of the day to this topic. This event will be run virtually and recordings will be available to all registered participants. Read more about this workshop here.
Don't panic!
We have no reason to believe that there is a need to panic. There will be time for businesses to transition and to get their policy and evidence in order for either Verification or Certification. The grants will be announced to support the financial process.
Let's stick together like we have for the last 5 years, support one another and we will indeed get back up again.