Apportioning the Price of the required Group Supports
This article outlines the 2023/24 NDIS Price Guide requirements for dividing the price of a Support by the number of participants in a group and the feature available in SupportAbility to help providers manage this.
Audience: Authorised Representatives, Finance Team, Team Leaders
Summary
The following list summarises the content within this article. Click on the links below to take you to the relevant sections:
- NDIS Price Guide requirement to divide the price by the number of participants
- Apportioning the Price of the required Group Supports
NDIS Price Guide requirement to divide the price by the number of participants
For many Support Items throughout the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limit Updates - 2023/24, it is stipulated that:
'If a support item is delivered to a group of participants then the price limit for each participant is the price limit set out in the following Table divided by the number of participants in the group. Providers should make a claim for each participant using the relevant support item. Each claim should be for the total time of the support but is subject to the lower price limit as set out above.' (p 60 of the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits 2023-24 Version 1.1 published 14/08/2023).
When this is the case, these Supports require the relevant portion of service delivery that needs to be charged for each participant to be selected in the NDIS Support Allocations window of the Client's Activities.
Apportioning the Price of the required Group Supports
When it is stipulated in the NDIS Price Guide that the Group Support must be divided by the number of participants in the group, the relevant 'portion' of service delivery that needs to be charged for each participant must be selected in the NDIS Support Allocations window of the Client's Activities. Once the Quantity has been entered, a validation message appears indicating that the relevant portion is required:
The relevant ratio of service delivery must be selected and are expressed as '(Number of Staff) : (Number of Clients)' e.g. 1 Staff Member supporting 3 Clients would be '1:3':
Once selected, the 'Full' Price of the Support (e.g. $63.21) is multiplied by the Portion selected (1:3) to determine the relevant Price 'Portion' ($21.07). Then this is multiplied by the Quantity (5) to determine the subsequent 'Value' to be charged ($105.35):
Price Limit ($63.21) x Portion (1:3) = Price Portion ($21.07) x Quantity (5) = Value $105.35
Searching for NDIS Support Allocations by Portion is possible for those with the required privileges using the Allocations Report. For more information regarding this, please see the Allocations Report article linked below for reference.
Custom Price
When the NDIS Support Allocation requires the Price to be Customised (i.e. those that are set to a Quote being required in the Price Guide, or those with no Price Control $0), the 'Full' 1:1 price of the Support must be entered. SupportAbility automatically calculates the price portion and value based on this:
Available portion options
The portion options available represent the most common ratios used when delivering Group Supports, as requested by our subscriber base, in their simplest form:
There are fewer ratio options available when service delivery is comprised of two or more Staff as these ratios can generally be expressed in simpler forms.
For example, a 2:10 ratio is not available, as this can be expressed in the simpler form of 1:5:
Which equates to the same Price Portion result mathematically:
- $63.21 x (1/5) = $12.64
- $63.21 x (2/10) = $12.64
The same could be said for other ratios such as 3:15, 4:20 etc.
Portions where the number of Staff is higher than the number of Clients e.g. 2:1 are not available as this would result in the apportioned Price exceeding the Price Limit. In such scenarios, a combination of the available portions must be used.
For example, if a support ratio of 2:1 was provided for 3 hours total, then the NDIS Support Allocations would be completed as follows:
How are portions displayed?
Badges are displayed in the Activity record reflecting the portion ratio/s selected:
This information is also included at the end of the Support Item description in Direct Invoices and the Client Funding Statement:
Full list of Support Items that require apportioning
Supports that require the price to be apportioning include:
- Various Core Supports such as:
- Group and Centre Based Activities (Standard & High Intensity) p58
- N.B. This functionality will only be available when the feature to utilise the 'new approach' for Group Supports has been released, expected in the upcoming upgrade to SupportAbility v7.3
- Supported Independent Living p 44/5
- (available to apportion from SupportAbility v6.21.5 based on evidence from the NDIA given this isn't specified in the Price Guide)
- Supported Employment (with the exception of the 04_891_0133_5_1_D transitional Support Item) p60/1 and p86
- Activity Based Transport p23/4
- Provider Travel - Non-Labour Costs p18
- Group and Centre Based Activities (Standard & High Intensity) p58
- Various Capacity Building Supports such as:
- Development of Daily Living and Life Skills (09_009_0117_6_3) p81
- Workplace assistance (10_016_0102_5_3) p84
- Physical Wellbeing Activities (12_027_0126_3_3, 12_027_0128_3_3, 12_029_0126_3_3) p90
- Dietetics (12_025_0128_3_3) p91
- Transition through school and to further education (13_030_0102_4_3) p92
- Early Childhood Intervention Supports (under 7 years) p94
- Therapy Supports (over 7 years) p95
A full list of Support Items that require apportioning in SupportAbility can be found here.
How are the Supports that need to be apportioned determined?
Unfortunately, the NDIA has not specified which Support Items require apportioning in the data version of the Price Guide i.e. the NDIS Support Catalogue which SupportAbility relies upon.
Therefore, the only way to identify which Supports require apportioning is by checking the Price Guide manually. Each Price Guide update must also be reviewed manually to ensure the Supports that require apportioning are updated in SupportAbility correctly.
Whilst we have had many sets of eyes at SupportAbility go over this many times, this approach is prone to human error. We are also aware that not all Supports have this requirement indicated in the Price Guide e.g. SIL Supports, even when apportioning the cost of these Supports is required. One of our subscribers kindly obtained written evidence from the NDIA regarding the necessity of this and we were, therefore, able to add this functionality for these Supports.
If your organisation notices any Supports that require apportioning that do not have the ability to do so in SupportAbility, please do have your Authorised Representatives report this through to support@supportability.com.au so we may look into this further and review the NDIS Price Guide to see what guidance has been provided. If the Price Guide does not explicitly state that the cost of the Support must be divided by the group of participants, further evidence from the NDIA may be needed before this can be updated into SupportAbility.