Tasmania health: northwest psychologist concerned over NDIS cuts

A Tasmanian psychologist says changes to the NDIS price index and cuts to travel subsidies will hurt some of the state’s most vulnerable people.

A Tasmanian psychologist says changes to the NDIS price index and cuts to travel subsidies will hurt some of the state’s most vulnerable people.

Tracey Martin-Cole is the founder and director of Psychology CAFFE as well as a member of the Australian Association of Psychologists.

She has spent years in her field working with Tasmanians, especially those in more remote areas.

Based in the northwest, Ms Martin-Cole said she was “frustrated” with the changes to funding and support.

“It’s been quite a significant shift that’s going to impact a lot of providers, and therefore, a lot of our participants,” she said.

“We’ve had to endure a significant number of changes, and this latest one is impacting us directly and our capacity to provide ongoing services for NDIS clients.”

The National Disability Insurance Agency which manages the NDIS released the review on June 18.

NDIS states the review was informed by the most comprehensive collection of data used by the NDIA to support its therapy recommendations, covering more than 10 million additional transactions including benchmarking with Medicare, private health insurance and 13 comparable government schemes.

Given the claims cuts, including a 50 per cent cut to travel, it has a significant impact to rural and remote communities like the one Ms Martin-Cole’s team serves, which is 150 people at any given time.

The area has a lot of lower income people who cannot afford or have access to travel.

“We have a lot of psychosocial disability in our rural and our remote areas because the housing is cheaper and there’s intergenerational and socio-economic challenges,” she said.

Tracey Martin-Cole practice director and psychologist at the Psychology CAFFE. Picture: SUPPLIED

Already on Monday, Ms Martin-Cole said she had several clients impacted by cuts.

“I can tell you only today of at least three examples of where the NDIA will not pay for the reports and the services we’ve already provided because somehow the planner says that the funds have run out, but nobody’s really sure why,” she said.

Ms Martin-Cole said already when travelling they’d organise to see several clients at once to make it viable for the provider.

“The providers, such as ourselves, other psychologists in the community, including other allied health providers, have been carrying the gap between the cost and increasing expenses, which is significant,” she said.

“We just can’t operate like that. And we’re doing it on our own time often anyway. Our team will travel before their normal work hours to get to one of those locations and then they’ll come after their normal work hours. It’s sometimes on their own time.”

She said it had been an effort to keep up with helping the community with recent parebacks already making it harder to provide support.

“The disability assessment treatment team was closed, subsequently, our child development unit has closed, so a lot of the services that were there for our remote and regional communities actually closed and then the providers stepped into that space,” Ms Martin-Cole said.

Ms Martin-Cole said it wasn’t viable but people in the community needed the health support.

“I’m concerned our most vulnerable people again will fall through cracks,” she said.

The NDIA responded to questions about concerns in the community.

“It’s important that NDIS participants are paying prices that are fair and in line with industry standards. In some cases, NDIS price limits exceeded the market rate by up to 68 per cent,” an NDIA spokesperson said.

“The NDIA’s annual pricing review recommended a cap on claimable travel rates and some modest changes to the hourly rate for some therapies.

“We heard from participants that excessive travel claims for therapy related services are draining participants’ plans faster than expected.”

The spokesperson said the updated rules “encourage more efficient scheduling by providers and provide clear cost expectations”.

Originally published as Tasmania health: northwest psychologist concerned over NDIS cuts