Published 1 July 2024
AHPA is profoundly disappointed by the National Disability Insurance Agency’s pricing review report.
The NDIA sets NDIS price limits through annual reviews. Allied health price limits, apart from some indexation for psychology, have not been increased this year. This means that allied health professionals have now not had a price limit increase of any kind – not even indexation – for five years.
It adds insult to injury that media and Minister Shorten continue to refer to ‘price gouging’ providers charging an NDIS ‘wedding tax’ and supposedly riding high on the proceeds.
Together with other providers, allied health professionals, have been expressing that if at times, they charge NDIS participants more than clients outside the Scheme (and still subject to the price limits), this is because providing NDIS supports has its own unique costs. The report claims to have heeded these submissions, but in setting the NDIS price limits the NDIA simply compares them to prices in other ‘markets’.
When there is a cost of living crisis, not increasing allied health price limits is effectively a price cut. This is deeply concerning for NDIS participants as it compromises allied health workforce availability, and consequently reduces participant choice of supports.
The NDIS urgently needs an independent pricing approach, as is currently the case for hospitals and (in the early stages) aged care.