People living with disability could soon find it more difficult to access treatments like music therapy under the latest cuts to the NDIS. Some practitioners say they may be forced to shut down, because their payments could soon be reduced by two thirds.
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00:00Music therapy is the highlight of four-year-old Kai Wall's week.
00:07Let's do a dance.
00:09When there's music, he just lights up.
00:14Kai is autistic and the therapy has helped him thrive.
00:17Whilst he was doing occupational therapy and speech therapy,
00:21bringing him to music therapy really brought those two therapies together
00:24and that's when we started to see progress from him.
00:27The Australian Music Therapy Association says it's outraged by changes
00:31to the way the therapy will be funded under the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
00:36We have been completely blindsided.
00:38Under the changes, music and art therapists can only bill the NDIS
00:42the current rate of $194 a session if they can show the treatment
00:46is maintaining or improving a participant's functional capacity.
00:51Otherwise, they must be billed at $68 for an individual session,
00:55a change practitioners say will force many to shut down.
00:59I am very aware that there are music therapists that have already put their staff on notice
01:04that if this decision can't be overturned, there will be no jobs.
01:08The change is part of the government's attempt to rein in the $42 billion NDIS budget.
01:15Therapist Grace Elliott says music therapy is based on a wealth of evidence.
01:21And you have to do a two-year master's degree to be a registered music therapist.
01:26The agency that runs the NDIS says music therapy doesn't meet the evidence standards
01:31to automatically qualify for the higher subsidy.
01:35Therapists dispute this, but the agency says it will refer individual provider claims
01:40to its new evidence advisory committee.
01:43The industry is vowing to keep going until the music stops.
01:50For more information, visit www.fema.gov