Being discharged from hospital? (...new options from 30 April 2020)
From 30 April 2020, two temporary support items were added to the new NDIS pricing guide to support participants leaving hospital to access the assistive technology they need to be safe for 30 days.
The intent of these items is to provide assistance until their short, medium and long term assistive technology and home modification needs can be assessed and an amended plan is in place.
This applies until 30 September 2020, with a review before the end of June 2020. So... apparently its gonna only apply for maybe 6-8 weeks tops before potentially going away. Hmmm.....
Unfortunately... this also means if you don't have AT in place now that meets your needs that within the first 30 days on arriving home you'll need to do another plan review. Thanks NDIA... NOT!
We think this policy response is a bit lazy. It also fails to recognise that a lot of rental AT rental firms are closed at this time making the potential to utilise such an option effectively redundant. Just remember... many hospitals have short term rental options (often) too!
It places an extremely heavy burden on people when they may still be unwell... and on providers to ensure that relevant reporting and other obligations are met. It could have been just as easy to provide a temporary allowance for up to 60 days. This means there might have been a reasonable means of obtaining access to an OT for equipment needs/scripting... but also to assess if there may be potential change in your needs so this could be planned too. For example, some equipment you may immediately need to be safe at home you might only require for 2-4 weeks. In other cases.... you may have longer term changes to think about. This policy response does nothing to ensure safety for people with more permanent changes at all.
Yet again... another dodgy sale item from a pathetically poor LNP response team. And to the policy mandarins... lets break your leg... place you in hospital then release you and give you 30 days support. We think this might be the ultimate litmus test of policy on the run.
@scottyfrommarketing.... not doing a good job in this space maaaaate!
