Future Proofing your NDIS Service – Implementing Your Business Strategy Post-Rollout

The Future Proofing your NDIS Service conference takes place in August in Sydney. Book now to learn from the first trial site service providers.

The official NDIS rollout is here but there are a few challenges still to be considered.

The scheme was launched across all states and territories (except WA) on 1 July, and will provide all Australians under the age of 65 with a permanent and significant disability with the reasonable and necessary supports they need to live an ordinary life.

“This is a historic day for people with disability and the broader Australian community – today we move away from the old one-size-fits-all approach to a new approach which is based on choice and control for people with disability on a scale not seen anywhere in the world,” chairman of the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), Bruce Bonyhady said.

The NDIS will transform the lives of 460,000 Australians with disability, their families and carers over the next three years, he added.

Redesigning NDIS services and becoming financially secure

With the rollout now launched, there is a financial imperative for service providers to have their business systems and services ready for the realities of individualised funding.

It is fundamental to redesign NDIS businesses from the bottom up to create an efficient, streamlined and financially viable business that will best support clients. It is essential that businesses learn how to identify gaps in the market, create and market a value proposition, design a workforce suited to your business and client needs and think outside the box to reduce overheads.

In order to prepare for this, there are a few questions that need to be answered:

• What makes up the efficient price – billable, non-billable and transport?
• How can you achieve the NDIS’s 95 per cent staff efficiency benchmark?
• How do you manage and work out payments plans at the same time as managing your cash reserve?
• How do you establish your ICT systems to help minimise overheads?

These questions will all be discussed and answered at the Future Proofing your NDIS Service conference, Workshop B – How to Be a Financially Secure Service Provider in the NDIS, at the end of August.

Opportunities for the sector

While the rollout presents new challenges for those working in the sector, it also offers great opportunity.

“It will open up a whole new marketplace for disability services. There will be huge opportunities, not just for the Not for Profit sector but also for for-profit providers,” Bonyhady said.

The contestable market for disabled services is expected to grow by an estimated three to four times to about $16 billion annually. Disability Services Minister Coralee O’Rourke also highlighted the job opportunities that will arise over the coming years.

“The NDIS is expected to create between 15,900 and 19,400 additional jobs for Queenslanders in the state’s disability sector alone. Many of these jobs will be in regional areas where unemployment rates are higher, including between 800 and 950 jobs in the broader Townsville and Mount Isa regions,” O’Rourke said at the launch of the NDIS Workforce Action Plan for North Queensland.

“There will also be great entrepreneurial opportunities for people to start up new businesses or branch out existing businesses to meet the growing demands… If you’re leaving school or TAFE, or looking for a career change, now is the right time to consider a career in the disability sector, where you can make a real difference every day.”

In NSW, Western Sydney is forecast to see the greatest jobs growth. The NDIA’s assessment of the NSW market earlier this year showed almost a quarter of current providers in Western Sydney expected their business to double in size, with a further 20 per cent expressing strong intentions to grow.

Consumer perspective from a trial site

For some, the support of the NDIS has already been life changing and allowed people to go from isolation to independence. Just like Kyle Stone who was living in a high dependency unit, was nonverbal and had a bleak outlook before his sister Alison got the help of the NDIS. Stone has Athetoid Cerebral Palsy and now goes out twice a day, plays the drums, has music lessons and enjoys a busy sporting schedule. Stone’s sister told The Mercury in Tasmania that the key benefit of the NDIS had been the choices it had allowed Stone and his family.

Debbie Hamilton, systemic mental health advocate at the Hunter trial site, addressed a Criterion Conference on her experiences of the NDIS late last year.

“The NDIS, I’ve personally observed is changing people’s lives,” Hamilton told the conference.

She said she is now seeing more and more people with severe physical and psychosocial disabilities engaging and participating in the community where they would previously have spent their time at home or at in-house groups.

“I can’t begin to tell you the difference the NDIS has made to my life. I’ve had support like I’ve never had before,” she said.

The Future Proofing your NDIS Service conference takes place on 31 August and 1 September in Sydney. The conference will be one of the first opportunities to learn from the first service providers who were part of the July 2016 NDIS rollout.

Visit here to view the full agenda and download the conference brochure – book by August 12 to receive early bird discounts.