New COVID-19 SIL Line Items

The NDIA has finally provided a bit more clarity for Supported Independent Living (SIL) providers whose residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19. 

Firstly and importantly – if you have a person within a Supported Independent Living (SIL) diagnosed with COVID-19, you must immediately notify the Quality and Safeguards commission via this link.

New line items

The Agency has announced that as part of their response to the pandemic they are introducing two new support items that relate to additional costs that may be incurred if a person within a SIL environment is diagnosed with COVID-19.

There are three relevant situations applicable for the new support items. It is acknowledged that a person may experience all three or a combination of them. These relate to a person diagnosed with COVID-19 who is: 

• Continuing to reside within their SIL home,
• Admitted to hospital, and
• Relocated to alternate housing for isolation purposes or while transitioning to or from hospital.

 The additional support items are: 

1. Once off payment of a maximum of $300 per participant diagnosed with COVID-19 for professional deep clean of their residence. If costs exceed this amount, they are to be met by the provider.
2. A maximum additional high intensity daily cost of $1,200 to meet the additional costs of support, PPE, laundering and other ancillary costs directly relevant to the additional support needs. The cost is applicable for the period from the day of diagnosis to the day they are tested negative. It is applicable regardless of whether they are at home, in the hospital or in alternate accommodation. The cost for alternate accommodation can be claimed via short term accommodation.

The critical question is, how do you claim for these additional items?

Once the Quality and Safeguards Commission is notified, they contact the NDIS so that the person’s plan may be updated as soon as possible. It therefore seems that the additional costs are claimed via the participant’s SIL funding so this may mean a temporary service agreement/booking amendment. The details of the logistics are not well defined at this stage.

Extra hours at home

Like everyone, SIL residents have probably been spending a lot more time at home than was anticipated when quotes were developed. So additional support might be needed.

 In these instances, the NDIA has previously provided following advice to SIL providers: 

• SIL quotes include irregular hours for intermittent occurrences of 1-3 days. These can be used for disruption in routine caused by the coronavirus.
• If the SIL provider has used all their irregular hours from the quote or if the change in routine is lasting longer than 3 days, they should create a service booking for Community Participation for the resident’s Core budget. This will require the provider to be registered for Community Participation. 

We’re keeping our eyes peeled for future updates for SIL providers. So stay tuned!