Confusion continues to reign for families transitioning on to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) as the ACT government ceases its early intervention services at the end of the year.
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In the latest development, families accessing early intervention groups for children with special needs offered for free by the ACT government's education department have been told term four of the service, which winds down this week, will be billed to their NDIS package.
Jennifer Merriman, whose three-year-old son Rhye attends the groups for his development delays, was only made aware of the unexpected cost from another family accessing the service this week.
She said it would eat into her son's NDIS package, of just over $28,000, and could mean he would be "hundreds of dollars" worse off, another parent has been told term four of the service would cost a minimum of $548.80.
"It's completely wrong, we've been doing this for years in the ACT… its public education, no one has ever been charged for this," she said.
"I've met with a private provider I've decided to go ahead with, but now I'll have to contact them and say 'we will have to revisit that because I'll be charged for my son's education in term four. I won't be able to spend the sort of money I was looking to spend with you for next year'.
"It's put a complete spanner in the works… it's ridiculous."
Private providers won't begin early intervention services in Canberra until the start of the 2015 school year, but Mrs Merriman said she had been told term four of the ACT government service would be billed to the NDIS as the transition began from October 1.
But the ACT government's NDIS coordinator, executive director for service strategy and community building Maureen Sheehan said "no money would change hands" when term four of early intervention services was "notionally billed" to each NDIS package.
She said providing the term four early intervention services, at a cost to the ACT government of about $2 million, would be part of the territory government's in-kind contribution towards the NDIS with each jurisdiction chipping in 60 per cent and the federal government covering 40 per cent.
"The families are confused about the way in which their package is being 'charged'," she said.
"This is exactly the same as for people in a Disability ACT (DACT) group home who have the DACT costs 'charged' to their package or a child receiving a service from Therapy ACT having their therapy 'charged' to their package.
"In all cases people still get the service from the ACT government and no money changes hands.
"However, in the world of the NDIS the service is part of the NDIS package so theirs is a notional billing arrangement.
"Clearly, some clients have been confused so we will all need to work harder to be clear about how individual packages work."
Mrs Merriman said she was concerned the unexpected costs to Rhye's NDIS package would mean it wouldn't stretch far enough to cover all the one-on-on therapy sessions he needed.
Specialised early childhood individual therapy sessions are priced at $168.26 per hour according to the NDIA's ACT price list.
Mrs Merriman said she knew of some families who had been told physiotherapy alone would cost $9000 for a year.
"Other families I know won't even do it, it's too much work so they've decided they're not going to even bother applying for the NDIS and that's really sad," she said.
"That means children will fall through the cracks, they won't get early intervention… and they'll get to school age and they'll be expected to attend mainstream school. How is that school meant to cope with them?"
Mrs Merriman said she remaind disappointed with the early intervention services offered by the six private providers who won tenders for the ACT, but had chosen the "best of a bad bunch".
