Aged Care & NDIS Update

Welcome to the Aged Care & NDIS Update Weekly Newsletter powered by Community Therapy.

This newsletter summarises key updates for you across the Aged Care and NDIS sector with this weeks focus being on:

• Aged Care quartley financial snapshot
• NDIS pricing update

Aged Care Update: Quarterly Financial Snapshot

The Department has released the October to December 2023 Quarterly Financial Snapshot of the aged care sector.

Residential Care

The financial position of residential aged care providers has improved significantly in comparison to October to December 2022.

EBITDA

• the percentage of residential care providers with a positive EBITDA YTD has increased by 18.9% to 83.5%

Occupancy

• the average occupancy increaed by 1.8% to 87.6%

Commentary

The Department did note however that:

• analysis demonstrates that the cost of delivering care is fully funded now
• significant improvements are required to ensure individual services are compliant with their mandatory care minutes responsibilities
• to maintain profitability, while increasing care minutes, providers need to charge appropriately for accomodation rather than cross subsidising from funding provided for care

The key takeaway here is that the Department is signalling that they expect expenses to rise as staffing matches the mandatory care minutes and the annual indexation of AN-ACC will now return to lower levels.

Home Care

The financial position of home care providers has also improved in comparison to October to December 2022.

EBITDA

• the average YTD EBITDA per recipient per day increased by $1.61 to $5.73
• the median EBITDA margin for home care providers was 8.12%

Wages to Revenue

• the median proportion of wages to revenue was 61%

Unspent Funds

• unspent funds increased by $0.92 billion to $2.78 billion

Commentary

With 12 months until HCP and STRC merge into SaH, providers should be preparing to navigate this period of change. We can expect a significant amount of guidance information coming from the Department over the coming two quarters.

NDIS Update: Annual Pricing Review

The actual NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits 2024-25 can be found here.

The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) has released its Annual Pricing Review (APR) for 2023/24 here with key notes being below.

• Disability Support Worker (DSW) - it is considered appropriate to pass on minimum Award wages and national employment standard changes to superannuation at this time, which include an increase in employer superannuation contributions from 11% to 11.5%, effective from 1 July 2024.
• Therapy Supports - analysis indicates that NDIS price limits generally match or exceed the rates for most therapies nationwide. Even when considering some therapists which means, medians and 75th percentile billing rates exceed NDIS price limits, the frequency of such instances does not indicate a systemic pricing concern that hinders participants from accessing these services relative to other clientele.
• Psychology - after reviewing the current price limits for Psychologists against private billing rates and other comparable government schemes, it is apparent that the current limits generally sit below the prevailing market rates
• Support Coordination - it is considered reasonable that Level 1 support coordination supports currently determined by the DSW Cost Model, continue to be done so, including any applicable changes that occurs for DSW supports
• NDIS short notice cancellation policy - The NDIA should adjust the 7-day short-notice cancellation policy for nonDisability Support Worker-related supports to two clear business days

It is important to note that for 2024/25, IHACPA will lead the Annual Pricing Review, not the NDIA.

Commentary

The NDIS continues to mature as a funding scheme and with the NDIS review and reform pathway focused on ongoing sustainability, providers can expect continued headwinds with respect to operating conditions. Providers need to focus on decreasing their overhead expenses and diversifying their services where possible.

What's the Latest from Community Therapy?

We has seen a significant expansion of our group exercise programs across the Central Coast and Hunter in partnership with HCP, CHSP and senior living / retirement providers.

Excitingly, we are also in the initial phase of rolling out new Stepping On programs across our region as well.

You can learn more about our group programs here.

Is your Manual Handling Training Up to Date?

The Community Therapy team support both online and face to face (Hunter, Central Coast and Port Stephens regions) manual handling training and the online course has now reached over 30,000 healthcare workers across Australia. Recent updates to modules like challenging behaviours, personal care and domestic assistance have been popular with both NDIS and Aged Care Providers.

Contact the Community Therapy team to find out more as they also provide discounts for bulk enrolments, including embedding our training within your current LMS.

Want to Know More about Community Therapy?

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• Contact us via our website or 1300 031 935
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Yours in Health,

Scott & the Community Therapy Team ????