In this issue of Don’t Be Left Out of NDIS Facilitrade provides tips on NDIS Certification Audits and summarises significant NDIS news:
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WHATS HAPPENING AT FACILITRADE NDIS
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NDIS NEWS
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
WHATS HAPPENING AT FACILITRADE NDIS
Disability Care Services Come to Beecroft
Bellona Care has based itself in Beecroft NSW at the Village Arcade. They offer disability care as well as aged care services. Facilitrade NDIS paid them a courtesy visit during which they explained their range of services from “drop-in visits for people who need just a little help, to personalised home care, live in care, post-accident/illness care etc. To obtain their services go to Bellona Care as, pending their NDIS certification audit, they have already started to deliver their services.
Cosmic Health Care’s Certification Audit Experience
Good preparation resulted in a “No Non-Compliance” audit! Here’s what my client, Veranja, the CEO of Cosmic had to say last month:
“Initially I was very nervous about our forthcoming Certification Audit, but once I read through all the policies and forms that my external consultant, Janaki of Facilitrade NDIS, had prepared I felt much more knowledgeable and confident. We came out with 90% compliance in the internal audits she conducted, and this further boosted our morale and confirmed that we were ready to face the audit.
My wife Vansaja and I, as founders of Cosmic Health Care and the only employees at that stage, faced the external audit together. While I answered the admin related questions, Vansaja as the Clinical Manager and RN addressed the technical and clinical questions. We found that the auditor was clearly impressed with the anecdotes and examples we drew from our experience, which emphasized that we had a good understanding about service standards and mandatory compliance requirements. Having the services of Facilitrade NDIS support us at the audit meeting was a great strength and we couldn’t have succeeded without this assistance.
We found that our auditor also played an advisory role and shared several best practices. All in all it was a learning experience, and we are now ready to get our services off the ground!”
NDIS NEWS
Several news items to cover this month – the government certainly has been busy in improving provisions for the disability sector:
Federal Government Launches 10 Year National Roadmap for Improving the Health of People with Intellectual Disability
A new 10-year national roadmap has been launched by the Morrison Government that aims to address the serious health inequities faced by people with intellectual disabilities.
New Version of the NDIS Act
The Minister for the NDIS Linda Reynolds has released an ‘exposure draft’ of the revised NDIS Act which is open for feedback for the next few weeks.
Once all feedback is collated and considered, around the end of October, the Minister will take it into Parliament for the federal Senators and MPs to vote on. If Parliament agrees, the Act will change before the end of 2021.
The legislation does NOT:
- contain any changes to ‘Reasonable and necessary’
- contain anything about independent assessments.
Some key changes proposed:
If someone wants to join the NDIS, the NDIA must decide within 21 days.
Families to get NDIS support for children with disability as soon as they find out about their child’s disability, while the child is still young.
NDIS plans should be easier to change.
The government wants to make the current Participant Service Guarantee rule as part of the law so there is greater compliance.
For more details:
Plain English summary Easy Read summary
50% wage subsidy available to employers for a limited time
Any business that engages a new or recommencing Australian Apprentice between 5 October 2020 and 31 March 2022 may be eligible for a subsidy of 50 per cent of wages paid to an apprentice or trainee for a 12-month period, to a maximum of $7,000 per quarter. Visit Department of Education, Skills and Employment website for more information on the program.
27 September 2021 is the deadline for Conversion of Casual Employment which came into effect on 27 March 2021
The federal government is offering employers 50% of wages up to $28,000 per person (over a 1-year traineeship) when you convert a casual employee to part-time/full-time OR a part-time employee to full time. All you need to do is sign them into a training contract to commence a traineeship and you can claim up to $7000 per person at the end of each quarter.
Employers must give every new casual employee the Casual Employment Information Statement (CEIS) when they start work. For existing casual employees Small business employers (with less than 15 employees) have to give your casual employees a copy of the CEIS as soon as possible after 27 March 2021. Other employers must give your existing casual employees a copy of the CEIS as soon as possible after 27 September 2021. See www.fairwork.gov.au/ceis for more information.
Meal preparation and delivery service flexibility
Effective from 10 September 2021 until 1 December 2021, participants who:
- currently use some of their Core funding to pay a support worker to help with meal preparation or shopping and
- live in an area with ‘stay at home’ public health orders in place
can now pay for a meal preparation and delivery service, instead of paying a support worker to help with these tasks at home.
This currently includes some suburbs in Sydney, all of Victoria and the ACT. This temporary change will be reviewed for any period after 1 December 2021. Click here for how to claim.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: Are Service Agreements a must?
Its good business practice to have a written service agreement between your organisation and each participant but it is not a mandatory NDIS requirement. The advantage is that both parties can negotiate and confirm what they have agreed to and have the same expectations of what services will be provided and how they will be delivered.
Of course to be GST free ATO requires a service agreement. But any GST the provider charges and participant pays, can be recovered from ATO as long as the participant is registered for GST. Its easier to go with service agreements wherever possible. Here’s a helpful guide: https://fb.watch/7CzL4zWpg7/
Q: How difficult is to pass an NDIS audit?
Your can sail smoothly through your NDIS Audit if you:
- Ensure that the policies you develop sync with what you write under the Self-Assessment section of your online application for NDIS registration.
- Reflect provisions of the NDIS Code of Conduct and Quality Standards in your policies and procedures.
- Prepare the easy read versions of policies and templates of forms that the NDIS Commission requires you to use in your business. Eg. Service Agreement, Incident Report, Feedback/Complaints Register, etc.
- Take time, prior to the audit, to read and understand what the policies mean in your business.
- During the mandatory audit justify and demonstrate what’s said in the application and policies through examples you’ve read about or from your experience.
- It’s worth getting a professional to develop your policies and take you through them.
It does take a lot of hours to develop these policies. I’ve taken my clients through the above process several times and happy to help. Just contact me via Facilitrade NDIS or call me on 0418 266 584.
Best regards until next time,
Janaki
