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The NDIA have finally released the full 2020/21 Price Guide and Support Catalogue, including updated pricing for all supports. Here’s the run down:
CORE SUPPORT PRICING CHANGES
Between Fair Work Wage decisions, CPI, changes to the NDIA’s Disability Support Work cost model and the removal of the COVID-19 loading, this Price Guide has seen upward and downward pressures on hourly pricing. The overall impact is not an increase in price limits but an approximately 5-7% reduction in most prices. The change is not consistent, as the Assistance with Self-Care Activities price movement below demonstrates:
But when we isolate the impact of COVID-19 loading, the price difference is a modest increase, with a 2.74% increase on Weekday Daytime rates:
CAPACITY BUILDING PRICING CHANGES
The price movement here is mixed:
- Support Coordination: 2.12% increase
- Improved Living Arrangements: 2.6% increase
- Increased Social & Community Participation: 2.6% increase
- Finding & Keeping a Job: Category totally restructured
- Improved Relationships (Behaviour Support): No change
- Improved Health & Wellbeing: No change
- Improved Learning: 2.6% increase
- Improved Life Choices (Plan Management): 2.12% increase
- Improved Daily Living: No change
GROUP PRICING RESTRUCTURE POSTPONED
In response to overwhelming feedback from group supports providers about the proposed “streamlining” of pricing, the NDIA have presented a compromise: the changes will go ahead – but not for another year. Providers will have the next 12 months to transition to the new arrangements with the option to use either existing ratioed line items or the new pricing structure.
At the moment it looks like this transition period applies only to groups under core supports. No transitional pricing has been included for therapy groups yet.
TTP REDUCTION
In 2020-21, the Temporary Transformation Payment will be a 6% loading (down from 7.5%).
SOME OLD FAVOURITES ARE BACK
Those of you who combed through earlier releases will be assured to learn that this Price Guide update has re-introduced three key line items that looked like they were on the way out in previous drafts:
- Self-Management Capacity Building (01_134_0117_8_1)
- Skills Development and Training (09_009_0117_6_3)
- Innovative Community Participation (09_008_0116_6_3).
PLANS WILL BE INDEXED
As always, participant plan values will be automatically increased to accommodate the indexed pricing. The change in TTP will have no impact on plans as participant funding is calculated on the basis of ex-TTP prices.
THE PORTAL UPDATE WILL BE DELAYED
In a move that will surely make many providers (plan managers in particular!) feel validated, the NDIA have announced that actually, it’s quite hard to update entire systems in only a couple days. So while the indexed prices will apply from 1 July, the Provider Portal is not expected to be updated to allow indexed claims until 11 July.
NEW ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY AND CONSUMABLES CODE
This update is accompanied by an update to the Assistive Technology and Consumables Code. We will explore this in more detail in the coming weeks and let you know if there are important updates (when the Price Guide is released at 5:05pm on a Friday there’s a limit to how much we can analyse, y’know?)
We are still a week off the beginning of the new financial year and this is already the 5th update in our 2020/21 Price Guide series. In case you missed the others…
