The NDIA has officially licensed a needs assessment tool, I-CAN, to create a ‘simpler, fairer’ approach to assessing disability support needs and plan budgets.
Reports and supporting evidence from a patient’s doctor will no longer be considered when assessing someone for their NDIS disability support needs, a move the government says will make the program “fairer, simpler and just plain easier”.
Minister for the NDIS Jenny McAllister announced last week that the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), the body which governs the NDIS, had procured a license for a new needs assessment tool developed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Sydney.
Ms McAllister said the process of getting reports from GPs and other specialists had been expensive and time-consuming.
“It can take a long time and cost a lot of money for people to source supporting evidence to have a planning meeting,” she said.
“There is a better way.
“This is a crucial step towards ensuring that we use the latest technology to make sure that we meet the needs of Australians with disability.”
The tool itself, which is known as I-CAN, maps a person’s support needs across 12 domains, including physical health, domestic life and interpersonal interactions.
It does not involve an algorithm or any type of AI technology.
Some versions of I-CAN are already used in the NDIS and the Disability Support for Older Australians program.
The version that has been officially licensed by the NDIA will be modified to ensure it is fit-for-purpose within the scheme.
It will be administered by trained assessors and focus on a participant’s disability support needs rather than functional impairments. Other questionnaires will be used to assess each person’s personal and environmental circumstances.
It is set to be implemented in stages, beginning mid-2026.
A spokesperson for the NDIA confirmed that, when the I-CAN is introduced, NDIS participants will no longer be required to provide reports from their GP or non-GP specialist doctor during the planning and assessment phase.
That is, they can submit reports if they choose to; but these will not necessarily impact the assessment process.
All current appeals processes will remain in place for participants who are dissatisfied with their plan.
Disability advocacy groups like Every Australian Counts have voiced concern about the introduction of I-CAN.
“Community members have raised fears about being assessed by strangers and whether the process could be used to limit supports,” EAC independent chair Dr George Taleporos said.
“For support needs assessments to work, the NDIA must be open about how the I-CAN tool will be used and exactly how assessment results will shape participants’ budgets and supports.”
This is not the first time that a government has attempted to cut GPs and other specialists out of the NDIS decision making process.
In 2020, then-minister for the NDIS Linda Reynolds attempted to introduce independent assessments, which would have required participants to be assessed by a third-party allied health professional in a question-and-answer session.
Former NDIA CEO Martin Hoffman said at the time that one of the reasons that GPs were being removed from the equation was in recognition that “where a physician or therapist or allied health professional has an ongoing treating relationship, there is the potential for identification with the participant, and [the professional] wanting the best outcome for them”.
Independent assessments were ultimately scrapped following public feedback.
The NDIA announcement on I-CAN referenced a recommendation from the 2023 NDIS Review to build a “better, clearer planning process to assess disability support needs and build plan budgets”.
More specifically, recommendation 3.4 from the review calls on the NDIA to “introduce new needs assessment processes to more consistently determine the level of need for each participant and set budgets on this basis”.
