Keryn Smith is creative & inclusive Warragul resident living with an acquired brain injury. For over ten years she has been receiving care from Through Life Physio. Helen Lowe, the director of the practice, has been a huge help to Smith. With her assistance, Smith is able to utilize a powerchair, which has greatly improved her mobility. Recent changes to the NDIS pricing structure have raised alarm. Many are worried these changes put the long-term viability of essential services in rural regions such as Gippsland at risk.
Their NDIS has just declared drastically reduced rates of travel for allied health providers, reducing these by 50 per cent. This decision has led many local practitioners, including Lowe, to wonder if the tactical approach of the changes was the right strategy. They claim that the cuts will disproportionately affect customers in regional, rural and remote locations. These clients are already hampered by barriers created by the physical distance between them and where services are currently offered.
Impact on Practitioners and Clients
Helen Lowe operates Through Life Physio with a team of eight practitioners who travel throughout West Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley. Their physical therapy clients range from schools to clients’ homes, as they walk or travel to the various client locations. Removing the ability of constituents to afford the travel with cut travel reimbursement will quickly unravel the important work these visits accomplish. Lowe’s small business stands to lose $34,000 annually due to these modifications.
Lowe took aim at the NDIS on Twitter for its handling of the changes to pricing. She stated, “It’s such an insult to us as practitioners that the NDIS thinks this is OK, and it is incredibly cruel on NDIS participants.” Furthermore, she stressed the importance of accessibility in therapy practices: “To do good disability physiotherapy you need to go where people are, not just bring them into your comfortable clinic.”
In our program participant Keryn Smith’s words, this is how crucial physiotherapy is for her autonomy. “If I didn’t have physio I couldn’t live here by myself,” she remarked. Her frustration is palpable as she declared, “I’m p*ssed off. Physio has been important, but the NDIS thinks physio is unimportant.”
Concerns Over Access Inequities
Leanne Wishart, chief executive of Gippsland Disability Advocacy, explained the wider impact of these changes. For her, the key point was the unique needs of those living in rural & remote areas – large challenge. It’s become increasingly difficult for these folks to access the essential services. “Effectively this creates an even greater inequity in access to NDIS services and breaches the rights of people with disability living in regional, rural and remote areas to have equal access to services,” she stated.
An NDIS spokesperson rejected criticism of the changes. They outlined how the new travel-claiming process makes more compact scheduling more appealing and provides clear, tangible cost-saving incentives for participants. The spokesperson noted that “in some cases, the data showed NDIS price limits significantly exceeded the market rate by up to 68 percent.”
Practitioners like Lowe are starting to sound the alarm. They claim that the recently introduced travel tariffs do not take into account the difficulties experienced by people delivering services to clients in difficult-to-reach locations. She expressed concern that the lack of consultation with professional bodies for physiotherapy and other allied health services during this process has left many feeling unheard and unsupported. “There’s been next to no consultation with our professional bodies for physio, OT (occupational therapy) and speech pathology who have all been affected by that 50 percent price cut to travel,” she said.
Future Implications for Therapy Services
Yet with financial sustainability threatened, Through Life Physio is now looking at implementing gap fees for NDIS clients. This could leave clients with little choice but to reach into their own wallets. In fact, they will soon be forced to pay for core services currently funded by their bottom line. But such a move would open new questions about affordability and access for people who are already living with disability.
As practitioners grapple with these changes and their potential impacts, many wonder whether they can continue providing vital care without compromising their ability to operate. In fact, one of those providers has already sent notification to their impacted clients. Or they are no longer able to provide a service because they are unable to recover costs.
