As NDIA CEO, Martin Hoffman pushed for independent assessments to bypass GPs. The initiative ended up dead in the water.
In his first public-facing act as Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Bill Shorten has announced the departure of Martin Hoffman, the CEO who sought to bring independent assessments to the scheme.
He will wrap up duties on 2 July, with a new CEO to be appointed in the coming months.
Mr Hoffman has been CEO of the National Disability Insurance Agency – the body which oversees the NDIS – since late 2019.
“I have been informed that the Board of the National Disability Insurance Agency and the Chief Executive Officer, Martin Hoffman, have agreed Mr Hoffman will step down effective July 2, 2022,” a media release from Mr Shorten’s ministerial office says.
Lisa Studdert, the deputy CEO for Markets, Government and Engagement at the NDIA will be interim CEO.
Independent assessments, where someone other than the regular practitioner of the person with disabilities assesses their eligibility for the scheme, were first trialled in 2018.
The concept gained momentum after being included in David Tune’s independent review of the NDIS and was originally set to be implemented in July 2021.
Last year, information released under Freedom of Information laws revealed that the entire chapter on independent assessments was inserted into the review by the NDIA when the body gave its “feedback”.
What’s more, five of the eight companies that won a tender to provide independent assessments were owned by a parent company with interests in delivering NDIS services.
The biggest criticism from the medical community, though, was that independent assessments would essentially exclude a person’s regular GP from the process of determining what they may or may not need funded under an NDIS plan.
In a public hearing on the subject last year, Mr Hoffman implied that GPs were likely to be too generous to their patients and recommend more funding than needed.
“This is not a comment to be critical or negative about any given situation or any given professional at all,” Mr Hoffman said.
“It’s just a 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.”
Ultimately, independent assessments were not implemented in July last year, largely due to a cabinet shake-up that saw the portfolio change hands to Linda Reynolds, who put the process on ice.
While the plan was never quite taken back off the ice, Ms Reynolds initially announced that the government fully intended to implement some form of independent assessment, while sounding the alarm about the financial sustainability of the scheme.
Earlier this year, growing numbers of NDIS participants began to notice their plans had been cut by about 30%, normally without notice or explanation.
At the time, Mr Shorten pledged to protect the NDIS and “return it to the honour of the scheme’s original intent”.
He also said that Ms Reynolds and the NDIS chief executive “must come clean on the cuts”.
About a year ago, Mr Shorten criticised NDIA leadership over the formation of a Sustainability Action Taskforce, which he labelled a “razor gang”.
“The NDIS is a right not a ration,” he said at the time.
“Yet what we have seen in the past eight years is that the Coalition is hell-bent on secretly slashing it at every possible opportunity.”
The Guardian reported around the same time on confidential documents that predicted annual savings to the NDIS of almost $200m if independent assessments were implemented.
