Hello, and welcome to another livestream, YouTube livestream.

Today’s topic is for Intensive Care at Home, NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) funding for home ventilation and tracheostomy, 24/7 Critical Care Nursing Guide to funding and this is exclusively for our Australian audience.

What we are covering today is learn how to navigate NDIS funding for home ventilation and tracheostomy with 24-hour critical care nurses in Australia. This comprehensive guide today covers NDIS eligibility funding category, support coordination, how to secure 24/7 ICU (Intensive Care Unit) trained nurses at home.

This session today is perfect for NDIS participants with respiratory needs, families, caregivers, NDIS support coordinators, as well as NDIS planners. What you will learn today is NDIS funding categories for ventilation and tracheostomy care, how to advocate and justify 24/7 critical care nursing support, documentation requirements for NDIS plans, NDIS Support Coordination strategies, real cost versus NDIS funding allocations, and how to work with NDIS planners effectively.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself and about Intensive Care at Home. What makes me qualified to host a YouTube live show about NDIS funding for home ventilation and tracheostomy for 24/7 critical care nursing guide for Australian clients.

My name is Patrik Hutzel. I am a critical care nurse by background having worked in critical care nursing for over 25 years in three different countries, where I worked as a nurse manager for over five years in intensive care. I was part of setting up Intensive Care at Home services in Germany in the early 2000s, and I’m the founder and managing director of Intensive Care at Home here in Australia.

We’ve been successfully operating since 2012, way before the NDIS was a thing. I never started Intensive Care at Home because of the NDIS, I started Intensive Care at Home because I knew there was a need for critical care nurses in the home for ventilated and tracheostomy participants or clients, adults and children.

I’m the founder and managing director of intensivecarehotline.com with Intensive Care Hotline. We are providing a consulting and advocacy service for families in intensive care all around the world and I can confidently say that we have saved many lives for our clients and their families in intensive care over the years. We’ve got testimonials on both websites, intensivecareathome.com and intensivecarehotline.com and we have testimonials in form of video interviews with our clients.

We have saved many lives for our clients in intensive care, whether it’s with Intensive Care at Home or with Intensive Care Hotline.

If you’re just tuning in now or if you’re watching this on replay, because we’re getting quite a few viewers on replay, welcome to Intensive Care at Home’s YouTube channel.

My name is Patrik Hutzel and thank you so much for joining us this Sunday morning here in Melbourne. For those of you just joining, we’re going live today to talk about something that affects so many Australian families dealing with complex respiratory needs, NDIS funding for home ventilation and tracheostomy care with 24-hour critical care nurses. If you are an NDIS participant, a family member of a NDIS participant, a NDIS support coordinator or an NDIS planner trying to navigate this complex system, today’s session is for you.

Before we dive in, let me ask you to do three quick things, hit the subscribe button right now, we share evidence-based information about critical care at home every week. Turn on the notification bell so you never miss this live session again or any of my other videos that are published during the week and drop a comment below telling me why you’re watching and where you’re watching from and what specific NDIS funding questions you have.

Let me tell you why we’re having this conversation today and why this topic matters greatly. We’ve been providing Intensive Care at Home services in Australia since 2012. We’ve worked with hundreds of Australian families who have loved ones requiring home ventilation, home ventilation with tracheostomy, home ventilation without tracheostomy, tracheostomy care without ventilation. The number one challenge they face isn’t the medical care, it’s navigating NDIS funding for those participants that are eligible for NDIS. We obviously engage with other funding bodies as well, such as the TAC (Transport Accident Commission), the DVA (Department of Veterans Affairs), private health insurances, departments of health, other providers where we engage in subcontracting agreements or NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme in Queensland) and any other funding body that is the equivalent to the TAC in Victoria.

Navigating funding is always a challenge or can be a challenge. However, before we look at NDIS funding in particular, in order to set the scene, you need to understand that if your loved one is stuck in a hospital or is at high risk of going to a hospital because you don’t have the right care arrangements at home, you don’t have the right funding, you don’t have the right provider, the alternative is an ICU bed often, and an ICU bed costs 5 to 10,000 dollars per bed day. You can already see that without a shadow of a doubt that home care is so much more cost-effective with critical care nurses than a hospital bed, let alone your quality of life, let alone the inconvenience in a hospital to the point where so many of our clients are simply traumatized by hospitals.

Before I go into the nuts and bolts of today’s conversation, today’s topic, I want to remind you as a participant or as a family member of a participant that you hold all the power and you hold a lot of power and do not let anyone persuade you otherwise because I’ve seen it that families really hold all the power and nobody else will hold the power. I’ll come to the nuts and bolts of that a bit later, why you hold all the power. But I want you to assume two things. Number one, the alternative is often an ICU bed which is 5,000 to 10,000 dollars per bed day. So whatever happens at home with critical care nurses is so much more cost-effective. Number two, you as the family, you hold all the power. Keep those two things in mind, and that in and of itself will give you a lot of leverage and a lot of power, whether it’s NDIS funding or even any other funding body.

The reality is that many families don’t know that 24/7 critical care nursing is even an option under NDIS. Many NDIS support coordinators sometimes lack experience with high level respiratory support needs. They don’t even know or believe that a 24-hour critical care nurse funding is possible with the NDIS. NDIS planners working for the NDIS may not understand the difference between standard support workers, registered nurses, and ICU-trained critical care nurses. They often don’t understand what reports they’re needing to look for, what assessments they’re needing to look for, and what needs to be in those assessments. Families are often told, “No,” when they should be hearing, “Yes,” but keep in mind, you hold all the power, and I will give you some examples later why.

Here’s what makes this even more critical. When someone is ventilator-dependent or has a tracheostomy or is both ventilator-dependent and tracheostomy, this isn’t just about quality of life. It’s about survival. It’s about safety. It’s about having trained professionals who can respond to emergencies in seconds, not minutes. That’s why I created Intensive Care at Home to provide ICU level nursing care in the comfort and safety of people’s homes and to help families navigate exactly what we’re talking about today, the NDIS funding process.

Here’s what you’ll learn today. Let me outline what we’re covering in today’s session. I want this to be incredibly practical and actionable for you. In the next roughly 45 minutes or so, we’re going to cover part one, understanding NDIS eligibility for respiratory support, who qualifies for NDIS funding with ventilation tracheostomy needs, the key criteria NDIS assessors look for, common myths and misconceptions. Part two will be NDIS funding categories explained, core support versus capacity building versus capital supports, where 24/7 nursing fits in your plan, understanding high intensity daily personal activities. Part three will be building your funding case, documentation you must have, medical reports that make the difference, how to quantify your needs in NDIS language.

Part four will be working with support coordinators and NDIS planners, questions to ask your support coordinator, how to prepare for your NDIS planning meeting, red flags to watch for. Part five will be real numbers and funding levels for 24/7 critical care nursing actually costs, typical NDIS funding allocation we see, how to advocate for adequate funding and part six will be questions and answers and next steps if you are having any questions and answers or if you’re seeking answers. I know that’s a lot, but stick with me because at the end of this session, you’re going to have a clear roadmap for how to approach your NDIS funding for respiratory support. If you have questions, keep them coming in the comments. I’ll be addressing as many questions as possible during our Q&A section as well.

Let’s look at part one, understanding NDIS eligibility. Let’s start at the very beginning, NDIS eligibility for people with ventilation and/or tracheostomy needs. First, the good news, if you or your loved one requires home ventilation or has a tracheostomy for respiratory support, you likely meet the NDIS disability requirements. These are clearly permanent or long-term conditions that significantly impact daily life. The NDIS has three main eligibility requirements: age requirements, you must be under the age of 65 when you first access the NDIS, you need to be an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or hold a protected special category visa, you must live in Australia, the disability must be permanent or likely to be permanent, it must significantly affect your ability to participate in everyday activity, you’re likely to need support under the NDIS for your lifetime.

Here’s where it gets specific to ventilation and tracheostomy. The NDIS recognizes that respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation or a permanent tracheostomy is a permanent and significant disability. This isn’t about a temporary condition; this is about ongoing life-sustaining support. What the NDIS looks for is medical evidence of permanent respiratory impairment. This could be from conditions like motor neuron disease, high level spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy, chronic lung disease, or congenital conditions such as Rett syndrome, cerebral palsy, spinal muscular atrophy, to name a few.

Evidence that you cannot perform daily activities without support. With ventilation and tracheostomy, this is usually clear, you need someone trained to manage your airway, ventilator settings, emergency situations. Prove that supports are reasonable and necessary. This is where 24/7 ICU trained nursing comes in. Let me be crystal clear about something. If you’ve been told you don’t qualify for NDIS because that’s healthcare, not disability support, that’s wrong. Yes, the NDIS doesn’t fund acute medical treatment or hospital stays, but it absolutely funds the disability support you need to live at home with your condition, including skilled critical care nursing for complex respiratory needs.

To put this in practical terms, for example, if someone has a spinal cord injury, that’s the funded disability, that leads to ventilation and tracheostomy needs. That means the NDIS funded disabilities, the spinal cord injury leading to ventilation tracheostomy. That’s why the NDIS needs to fund.

The same is applicable. For example, if someone has cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is the funded NDIS diagnosis leading to ventilation tracheostomy. That’s why the NDIS needs to fund. I hope that’s clear. If, for example, someone has a health condition like let’s just say COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) or asthma, leading to ventilation and tracheostomy, that is actually not a funded NDIS diagnosis. I hope that clears that up.

Let’s look at NDIS funding categories for respiratory care. Now that we’ve established eligibility, let’s talk about where the funding actually comes from in your NDIS plan. Your NDIS plan is divided into three budget categories: core supports, which is most flexible, capacity building and capital supports. For 24-hour critical care nursing with ventilation and tracheostomy care, we’re primarily focused on core supports, specifically the category called assistance with daily personal activities. But here’s the critical distinction that many people miss. There’s standard personal care and then there’s high intensity daily personal activities or what’s sometimes referred to as complex needs support. Let me break down the difference. Standard personal care, help with showering, dressing, meal preparation, medication reminders, basic mobility assistance usually provided by support workers or personal care assistants.

Let’s look at high intensity daily personal activities, which is your category if you’re watching this, which is clinical care requiring specialized nursing qualifications, ventilator management and monitoring, tracheostomy care suctioning, tube changes, inner cannula changes, cuff management, and the capability for emergency responses, complex medication administration, vital sign monitoring, life sustaining interventions. See the difference? You’re not just needing someone to help you shower, you need someone who can recognize respiratory distress immediately, respond to ventilator alarms appropriately, perform emergency tracheostomy changes, manage and prevent aspiration events, adjust ventilator settings within prescribed parameters, liaise with respiratory physicians, ICU doctors, ICU physiotherapists and so forth. This requires ICU-trained registered nurses 24 hours a day, certainly not standard support workers, certainly not even a general registered nurse without ICU experience.

This is exactly the level of care we are providing at intensivecareathome.com and have been providing very successfully since 2012 because our nurses are critical care trained, many with ICU backgrounds, a few with an ED (emergency department) nursing background, but I’d say 90 to 95% with an ICU nursing background, there might be 5% with an ED background, but also with ICU experience and they’re all specific experience in ventilation and tracheostomy management.

Here’s what you need to know about funding levels. The NDIS uses price guides, but for complex nursing like this, you’re typically looking at registered nurses, NDIS line items and the clinical nurses, which is the specialist nurses. There are different rates for Monday to Friday daytime, Monday to Friday afternoon time, Monday to Friday nighttime, Saturday rates, Sunday rates, and public holiday rates. Realistically, comprehensive 24-hour critical care nursing for ventilation tracheostomy at home typically requires, let’s just say, 1.1 to 1.5 million dollars annually in NDIS funding. If you compare that to an ICU bed, that’s 5,000 to 10,000 dollars per bed day, which is basically 3 million dollars a year as opposed to 1 to 1.5 million dollars a year.

It varies depending on location. For example, if there are clients in remote or regional areas, the funding is usually higher, simply because of the challenges around getting highly specialized staff into regional or remote areas. By the same token, it is also way more expensive to send a client from a regional or remote area to an ICU, whether that’s transport costs or whether that’s the cost of running an ICU in a regional or remote area. So, it’s proportionate really in terms of the cost environment for both cases.

Plus, it’s a no-brainer to be at home if you can with your family in your community with continuity of care. Continuity of care means we are not an agency where staff come and go. We are a service provider that has a tailor-made solution for our clients, meaning we create stable teams with critical care nurses that you know, like, and trust. That is really part of our promise, a tailor-made solution with people that you know, like, and trust. The NDIS recognizes this value and have been from day one, they will fund this level of support when it’s properly justified.

Let’s look at part three, building your funding case documentation. Now we know that you’re eligible, we know which funding category applies, and we know the realistic costs. Now comes the crucial part. How do you actually get this funding in your NDIS plan? The answer is documentation, documentation, documentation. The NDIS doesn’t just take your word for it. They need evidence that your supports are reasonable and necessary for respiratory support. Here’s what that means. Essential documentation you need. Specialist medical reports, either from a respiratory physician, from an ICU consultant, sometimes it can be a sleep therapy doctor as well, but most of the time, and the most conclusive reports you get from an ICU doctor or from a respiratory physician. What you need is diagnosis and prognosis, specific ventilation requirements, hours per day, settings, tracheostomy management needs, risk assessment without appropriate nursing support, a clear recommendation for 24-hour ICU-trained nursing care.

It can’t be broad. It needs to say, “Recommendation for 24-hour ICU-trained nursing care as lifesaving.” It can’t be washed, it can’t be watered down, it can’t be too general. It needs to say, “This client needs 24-hour intensive care nurses, otherwise they are at high risk of dying or at least going back to hospital.”

Then you need an independent nursing assessment by a critical care nurse, ideally by a legal nurse consultant with a critical care nursing background. We have some critical care nurses with a legal nurse consulting background in our network, so you can reach out to us if you need an assessment. These reports can’t just say that a patient needs nursing care, they need to be specific and saying, “This client needs 24-hour nursing care with critical care trained nurses, otherwise they’re at risk of dying or going back to hospital.”

I have so much evidence that people have died without 24-hour nursing care when even though the evidence was there, I’ll talk about that more at the end.

You can’t really take any shortcuts here because if you take shortcuts or if the NDIS takes shortcuts or the NDIS support coordinators take shortcuts, people have died and continue to die if people don’t listen.

You might need a letter from a rehabilitation specialist or a primary care physician talking about overall health status, impact on daily functioning, care coordination needs and the clear documentation that 24-hour nursing care with critical care trained nurses is needed. Otherwise, the client is at risk of dying or going back to hospital.

You need an occupational therapist functional capacity assessment, assessment of daily living activities, environmental modifications needed, assistive technology requirements, and confirmation of 24-hour intensive care nurses needed, otherwise the client is at risk of dying or going back to a hospital.

You will also need a letter or an assessment from a physiotherapist and those physiotherapists need to have extensive ventilation and tracheostomy experience. They should have worked in ICU at least for a few years before they’re able to write a report like that. What is really important here is that all reports need to say the same. All reports need to say that the client needs 24-hour nursing care, otherwise they’re at risk of dying or going back to hospital. That’s so important, and I can’t stress this enough, write that down, that all reports need to say that the client needs 24-hour critical care nurses, otherwise they’re at risk of dying or going back to hospital. All reports need to say that.

Sometimes you do need a speech therapy assessment as well, not in all cases, but in most cases, and that speech therapy assessment needs to say that the client needs 24-hour nursing care with critical care trained nurses, otherwise they’re at risk of dying or going back to hospital.

The medical reports in particular should be saying, “The client requires continuous mechanical ventilation for X number of hours a day due to the specific NDIS funded diagnosis. Tracheostomy requires suctioning every X hour and complete tube changes or inner cannula changes every so often. Patient is at high risk of specific complications such as tracheostomy dislodgement, mucus plugging, accidental decannulation, ventilator disconnection, which require immediate intervention by trained critical care nursing staff 24 hours a day. Without 24-hour ICU trained nursing supervision, patient is at risk of respiratory arrest and death.” General registered nurses, standard support workers do not have the clinical skills required for this level of respiratory support. Therefore, I recommend a minimum of 24-hour critical care nursing coverage seven days a week, 24 hours a day provided by registered nurses with ICU and critical care level experience. Notice the language? It’s specific, it’s clinical, it’s focused on risk and necessity. This is what NDIS planners need to see.

Next. Functional capacity assessment by an OT (occupational therapist). This assessment shows how your disability impacts your daily life, what you can and can’t do independently, what you cannot do without support, what supports you currently have, what gaps exist in your current support.

You need a support needs assessment. This outlines current support arrangements, hours of support currently received, informal support family carers, identified gaps and risks, recommended support model, which is 24-hour intensive care nursing with Intensive Care at Home.

You will need quotes from registered NDIS providers. This is where provider like intensivecareathome.com comes in. You need a detailed service quotes showing hourly rates, breakdown of 24/7 coverage costs, explanation of nursing qualifications required, scope of clinical services provided. Our scope of clinical services is very descriptive. It’s Intensive Care at Home. It’s the whole suite of what a ventilator and tracheostomy client needs at home, whether it’s from a nursing care point of view, whether it’s from a safety point of view, whether it’s from a community access point of view, so that you can actually live your life safely in the community.

You need a hospital discharge summary. If you’ve recently been hospitalized, get a discharge diagnosis, a care plan recommendation for home support equipment prescribed.

Part four, working with support coordinators and with NDIS support coordinators and NDIS planners. By the way, we provide Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS support coordination in house. I encourage you to reach out to us because we are really the specialists on NDIS funding when it comes to 24-hour critical care nurses. One of the reasons why we are providing NDIS support coordination in house is simply that we have found that most NDIS support coordinators do not understand the needs for our clients. They do not understand what evidence needs to be provided to the NDIS. They are not clinicians. When I ask NDIS support coordinators, very often I ask them, “What makes you qualified to do the advocacy or present an ICU patient with NDIS needs? What makes you qualified for that?” I get silence. Because they are not qualified most of the time.

We are here to help NDIS support coordinators to help them understand. We’re here providing an education service for NDIS support coordinators that are faced with this challenge of needing 24-hour nursing care funded through the NDIS. To NDIS support coordinators and planners watching, thank you for the incredibly important work you do. This information is for you too, because complex respiratory support is specialized and we want to partner with you to get the best outcomes for participants.

NDIS support coordinators, you can be the greatest ally of your clients or they can be an obstacle if you don’t understand complex care and intensive care needs. Questions to ask when choosing an NDIS support coordinator. “Have you worked with participants who require 24-hour nursing care before? Do you have experience with ventilator-dependent clients and/or tracheostomy care? Can you help me source and coordinate ICU-trained nursing providers? Will you attend my NDIS planning meeting with me? How will you help me advocate for adequate funding? Do you have any success stories of having successfully secured 24-hour intensive care nurses before?”

If your current NDIS support coordinator doesn’t have experience with high intensity medical supports, it’s okay to request a change or to bring in specialist support coordination from another provider.

Red flags to watch what they tell you, NDIS doesn’t fund nursing care. Wrong. They fund disability-related nursing care, otherwise we wouldn’t exist. They suggest using support workers instead of nurses for ventilator management, which is absolutely dangerous. So many people have died because of NDIS support coordinators not knowing what to do to secure 24-hour nursing care. They just need to talk to the right people, which is us, and we will help them. Or they’re unfamiliar with the difference between standard care and high intensity daily personal activities. They can’t provide examples of similar participants they’ve supported.

With NDIS planners, your planning meeting is where your funding gets determined. Preparation is everything. How to prepare for your NDIS planning meeting. Before the meeting, submit all documentation two to three weeks in advance. Don’t assume the NDIS planner will chase you for reports. Include everything we discussed, medical reports, assessments, quotes, prepare a one-page summary, your diagnosis, your ventilation, tracheostomy needs, why you need 24-hour intensive care nursing, specifically the risks without this support. Invite your NDIS support coordinator to attend. If anything, they should be driving this. Consider inviting your respiratory doctor or ICU doctor and you should invite us as a provider because we’ve been in many of those planning meetings. You have to assume that most NDIS support coordinators as well as NDIS planners are not clinicians. They have minimum qualifications when it comes to this area, to this niche. So it’s important that you have clinicians in those meetings that can illustrate the clinical risks.

You should practice explaining your needs clearly. We can help you with that, especially when we are in the meeting. Be specific about your daily routine, walk them through a typical 24-hour period, explain every intervention you need, highlight emergency scenarios. Use the right language. Say, “High intensity daily personal activities.” Say, “Critical care nursing for life sustaining respiratory support. Say, “Reasonable and necessary to prevent hospitalization and support community participation.” Simply say, “To avoid me dying.” Emphasize goals, not just needs, with 24/7 intensive care nursing at home. “I can live at home, spend time with family, pursue hobbies, participate in my community. Without adequate nursing support, I’m at risk of hospitalization, isolation, medical complications.” Have your provider quotes ready from registered providers like intensivecareathome.com showing realistic 24/7 costs.

I argue we are the only provider in Australia in 2026 that is having third-party accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing. There’s no other provider in this country that has accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing like we do that is actually registered, that has built the intellectual property for Intensive Care at Home, that has the teams. We have hundreds of years of intensive care nursing experience combined employed in the community. No other provider is bringing a higher skill level in the community than we do. I would be very surprised if you find anything.

Let’s ask devil’s advocate questions. Can family members provide this level of care? The NDIS support coordinator might ask, and what you should say is that, “my family provides emotional support and coordination, but they’re not ICU-trained nurses.” Managing a ventilator and tracheostomy requires specialized clinical skills and immediate emergency response capability that only critical care registered nurses possess. Expecting family to provide this level of medical care 24/7 is neither safe nor sustainable, and many patients have died under this model. I have evidence for that. You can go into a planning meeting and I can give you… I can’t give names, but I can show incident reports that are deidentified. I can give postcodes of the deidentified cases and the NDIS would know exactly who I’m talking about, which clients have died because the funding wasn’t there.

Support workers cannot legally or safely manage ventilators or perform tracheostomy care. These are regulated nursing acts that require critical care registered nurse qualifications, and respiratory physicians and ICU consultants will specifically recommend ICU trained nursing for the client’s safety.

If the NDIS planner asks, “Why do you need 24/7 coverage?” You can say, or you need to say, “I’m ventilator or tracheostomy dependent, which means I require continuous monitoring emergencies like mucus blocking, ventilator disconnections or accidental decannulation can occur at anytime and require immediate intervention within seconds not minutes. Without a trained nurse present 24/7, I’m at risk of respiratory arrest and death.”

Let’s look at now at real numbers and what to expect, which is part five. Now I want to start getting into real numbers and funding levels you can expect. Before we break down the specific funding levels and how to advocate for what you need, let me just say this. The NDIS system can work for people with complex respiratory needs. We’ve seen it happen successfully over and over. Otherwise, we would not exist. But it requires thorough preparation, strong medical evidence, clear communication, persistence, the right provider partnerships. We believe that’s Intensive Care at Home because, once again, not only do we have the workforce, we have the knowledge, we have the NDIS support coordinators that can make that happen for you. It is a no-brainer. We have been doing this very successfully since 2012.

We didn’t just ride the NDIS bandwagon because there’s so many people now that start an NDIS business because they think there’s money in the NDIS and we started this business or I started this business simply because I knew there was a need. It had nothing to do with NDIS. I can see Marilyn has a question. I’ll come to your question later. This is why intensivecareathome.com exists. We don’t just provide nursing care, we partner with families, NDIS support coordinators, NDIS planner to make sure participants get the funding and support they need. We’ve helped hundreds of families navigate this exact process and we’re here to help you too.

When we come back in just a moment, we’re going to talk about realistic funding amounts you should be requesting, what to do if your plan doesn’t include enough funding, how to appeal and advocate, success stories and real examples. But first, if you’re finding this valuable, like the video, subscribe to my YouTube channel, share this with anyone who needs this information and drop your questions in the comment. If you or someone who knows who needs 24-hour critical care nursing support at home right now, visit intensivecareathome.com. We offer free consultations to discuss your specific needs.

Part five, real numbers and funding and funding levels. Real numbers and funding levels. For those just joining us, we’re talking about NDIS funding for home ventilation and tracheostomy with 24/7 critical care nurses. In the first half, we covered eligibility, funding categories, documentation, and how to work with your support team. Now let’s get into numbers because this is where a lot of families get surprised and where you need to be prepared.

Realistic 24/7 critical care nursing costs, let’s start with an ICU in a hospital, 5,000 to 10,000 dollar per bed day, home care, half of the cost. We obviously base our pricing according to the NDIS price guide. You can look that up for registered nurses and for clinical nurses. We are not charging anything outside of an NDIS price guide. There’s no out of-pocket expenses for you.

The only difference is often the geographic location. You can look at the NDIS price card. There’s the standard rates, which is basically the metropolitan rates, and then there’s regional and very remote rates and that will have an impact on your NDIS funding because it’s much more expensive for us too, to provide services in a regional or remote area because of getting staff to those areas. There’s not enough specialist staff in those areas. There could be fly-in, fly-out arrangements.

When you look at the 24/7 coverage, Monday to Friday, there’s a daytime rate from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Then there’s an evening rate from 8:00 PM to midnight, and then there’s a rate from midnight to 6:00 AM. Then there’s a Saturday rate, there’s a Sunday rate, and there’s a public holiday rate. This is before we cover for annual leave, training, and professional development, administrative overhead, clinical supervision, and quality assurance.

Realistic annual funding requirements are probably between 1.2 million and 1.5 million in a metropolitan area, higher in a regional or remote area. I know what you’re thinking. You will actually now say, “Will NDIS really approve this amount? Will anyone give me 1.2 or 1.5 million dollars?” The answer is yes, when properly justified. We’ve worked with so many participants who have received the amount that we’ve asked for, and you hold all the cards. What makes all the difference, strong medical evidence, strong nursing assessments, strong physio assessments, strong speech assessments, strong OT functional capacity assessments, all saying the same that you or your family member needs 24-hour critical care nursing, everything needs to be properly documented, a clear risk assessment, what would happen without this support, i.e., hospital admission or death, a detailed provider quote, which we can give you here at intensivecareathome.com.

The NDIS understands that keeping you safe at home is a far more cost-effective option than repeated hospitalizations or permanent institutionalized care. Your job is to help them understand exactly what you need and why.

Let’s talk about what happens if your NDIS plan comes back and the funding allocated is not enough to cover your 24-hour nursing care or your family member’s 24-hour nursing care. This happens and you’re not alone, and there are solutions. Common scenarios we see is funding is approved but at lower cost. Example, plan provides for 16 hours a day instead of 24 hours a day. Funding is approved, but an incorrect rate levels, plan uses support worker rates instead of critical care registered nurse rates. Funding is denied or significantly reduced. Example, planner states, “Health system responsibility or informal support should provide care.”

What to do if funding is insufficient? Request a plan review immediately. Request a plan review immediately. You have the right to request a review of your plan if you believe the support are insufficient for your needs, your circumstances have changed, there were errors in the planning process.

How to request? Call NDIS on 1-800-800-110. Submit a request in writing through myplace portal. Work with your NDIS support coordinator to lodge the request. Timelines, reviews can take 60 to 90 days, so act quickly, gather additional evidence. If your initial documentation wasn’t strong enough, beef it up, spice it up, get a more detailed medical report specifically addressing why lower hours are unsafe, specific clinical risks, previous hospital admissions due to inadequate support, medical professionals’ explicit recommendation for 24-hour intensive care nurses. This is why I can’t emphasize this strong enough. All the reports need to say you need 24-hour intensive care nurses, otherwise you’re at risk of dying or going back to hospital.

Document incidents and near misses, any emergency situations that occurred, times when gaps in care created risks, hospital presentations related to inadequate support, get supporting statements from current nurses or care providers which you can get from us, hospital discharge planners, respiratory therapists, respiratory physicians, ICU consultants, ICU nurses, family members about unsustainability of informal care.

If the plan review doesn’t resolve, requests an internal review through the NDIS may be requested within three months of receiving your plan. NDIS must make a decision within 60 days. You can have a support person or advocate with you. Legal aid services can help free in many cases.

Step four, the Administrative Review Tribunal, ART. If internal review fails, you can appeal to the ART, must be lodged within 28 days of internal review decision. Legal representation recommended often available free through disability advocacy organizations. ART has the power to overturn the NDIS decisions.

Let me share you examples. We worked with two families whose initial plan provided only 12 hours of nursing care daily for the ventilator-dependent family members, respective family members I should say. Through the ART review process with updated medical evidence and detailed nursing assessment, detailed incident documentation, the plan was revised to full 24-hour coverage at the appropriate nursing rates, increasing from a lower level of dollar amount to the higher level of dollar amount. It took persistence, but the clients got the right outcome. We participated in the report writing, of course, whenever we were asked to.

Utilize support organizations because you don’t need to do this alone. Australia has excellent advocacy organizations such as the National Disability Advocacy Program, NDAP, Free Advocacy Support, Brain Injury Australia, Children and Young People with Disability in Australia, Disability Advocacy Network Australia, your state’s disability, advocacy, service, interim solutions while appealing.

While fighting for proper funding, you still need care now. Options include mix of nursing and family care if medically safe for short periods. Apply for additional state-based support. Some states have complimentary programs. Explore charitable funding. Some organizations provide gap funding. Payment plans with providers, some registered providers like intensivecareathome.com may work with you during appeal processes, we have done. However, never compromise safety. If 24/7 nursing is medically necessary, work with your hospital team if home isn’t safe without proper supports.

Let’s look like what it looks like working with providers like intensivecareathome.com. Let’s talk about choosing the right provider because not all nursing providers are equipped to handle complex respiratory care. When you’re looking for a provider for home ventilation or tracheostomy care, here’s what you need to look for. NDIS registration must be a registered NDIS provider, should be registered specifically for high intensity daily personal activities, should be registered for community nursing services, critical care expertise, nurses with ICU and critical care experience, specific training and ventilation management, specific training in tracheostomy care and emergency response protocols.

We have all of that. We are third-party accredited for Intensive Care at Home nursing. We are the only provider in Australia that actually has achieved that level of accreditation and we have the workforce to back it up. We employ hundreds of years of intensive care nursing experience combined. No other provider brings that high skill level into the community. We’re looking after the highest acuity clients in the community in Australia safely. There’s no other provider that can do what we do. We obviously work 24/7 with our critical care nurses, similar to an intensive care unit. We’re basically providing an intensive care community service with intensive care beds in the community. We have backup staff for sick leave, unplanned leave and so forth. We have an established roster management team. We have clinical governance. Most providers do not have clinical governance because they lack the expertise, they lack bringing the right people together because we have our own intensive care consultant, ICU specialist.

We have clinical governance here with myself. I’m a critical care nurse with 25 years critical care nursing experience. We have a clinical operations manager. We have nurse managers in different states. We have educators. We have clinical governance. Ask other providers if they bring the same skill level to the table with clinical governance. I’m not aware of any.

Clinical supervision and quality assurance processes, incident reporting and management, ongoing training, and professional development, accreditation, and compliance. Participant-centered approach, willing to meet with you and your family before anything starts, no obligation. We develop individualized care plans. We involve you in care decision. We involve you in the hiring process. We respect your goals and preferences.

At intensivecareathome.com, this is exactly what we provide. Our service model is built around ICU trained critical care nurses. Every nurse has critical care experience a minimum of two years. Most of our nurses have a minimum of 5, 10 years, which is why I’m constantly saying we’re employing hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined in the community with a large pool of nurses to choose from. We provide specialized training for you as a client because you have your own routine and our nurses need to learn about that.

Ongoing education in latest evidence-based practice for our staff. Comprehensive care planning, we work directly with your respiratory physician or ICU consultant, or we bring our own ICU consultant on board if you want that. Individualized ventilator protocols, emergency response procedures, and continuity of care, consistent nursing team, not agency casuals. We have consistent nursing teams that you know, like, and trust. Relationship building with you and your family, nurses who understand your specific needs and preferences.

We provide detailed quotes for your NDIS planning. We can attend planning meetings with your permission, of course, but it’s inevitable for you to have us there because we speak clinical and explain to the NDIS what’s happening without nursing care. We work collaboratively with your NDIS support coordinator, or you can use our NDIS support coordinator sometimes even pro bono because we want to help other NDIS support coordinators learn and understand how the NDIS works.

We provide clinical reports to support your funding applications. Here is what sets a specialized provider like intensivecareathome.com apart. We understand the NDIS system and we understand critical care nursing. That is what we do. Once again, I argue no other provider understands that as much as we do, because we have the staff, we have the know-how, and we’ve been in business for a long time. Other providers can’t pull off what we pull off. Many nursing agencies know NDIS, but don’t have respiratory expertise. Many hospital-based nurses have respiratory expertise, but don’t understand the NDIS funding. You need both and we do know both.

Questions to ask potential providers, “How many ventilator dependent or tracheostomy clients do you currently support? Do you have third-party accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing?” Because you need that because otherwise you can’t be safely looking after ventilators and tracheostomy clients at home. Ask them, do they have the policies and procedures, the know-how, the teams. How many ICU nurses do they have? Can they hire nurses? Do they have the network and the reputation to hire good nurses? Ask them, “What happens if my regular nurse calls in sick? How do you manage clinical emergencies in the home?” Probably a much more important question to ask is, “How do you prevent clinical emergencies at home?” That is a much better question to ask. “Can I meet the nurses who will be caring for me before the service starts? What training do your nurses receive specific to my condition? How do you communicate with my medical team?”

If you’re looking for this level of care, visit intensivecareathome.com and call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send me an email to [email protected] because we will assess your specific needs, provided detailed cost for your NDIS plan, answer all your questions, connect you with our clinical team. We service clients all around Australia from metro areas to all regional and remote locations because everyone at home deserves access to quality critical care at home when appropriate.

We’re on the home stretch. Let me share some final success strategies and insider tips that can make all the difference in your NDIS journey.

Top 10 success strategies:

1. Start early. Begin gathering documentation three to six months before your planning meeting. Don’t wait until the last minute. Give your doctors and nurses plenty of time to write comprehensive reports.
2. Be organized, create a folder, physical or digital, with all your documentation, keep copies of everything, track all conversations and meetings, dates, names, outcomes.
3. Use NDIS language, learn the terminology, reasonable and necessary, high intensity supports, core funding, frame your needs in NDIS terms, align with NDIS principles, choice control, community participation, focus on goals, not just needs. NDIS is about participation and inclusion, not just survival. Talk about what you want to do with proper support. Example, “With 24-hour intensive care nursing, I can pursue my university studies from home,” not just, “I need nursing to stay alive.”
4. Quantify everything, be specific with numbers, hours of ventilation per day, number of suctions per shifts, frequency of tube changes. Provide concrete examples, use medical data.
5. Demonstrates risk, clearly what happens without adequate support, document past incidents, get medical professionals to state risks explicitly. We can help you with that because we’re a team of medical and nursing professionals.
6. Build a strong support team, experienced NDIS support coordinators, engaged medical specialists, quality provider like intensivecareathome.com that are third-party accredited for Intensive Care at Home. Advocacy organizations if needed, never accept no for an answer. NDIS decisions can be reviewed and appealed. Many successful participants had to advocate persistently. Your safety is absolutely non-negotiable, and you hold all the cards, which is what I said in the beginning. What I mean by that is families who don’t give up hold all the cards. They always get what they want. Families who are prepared to speak up, families who are prepared to go to the media, go through appeals processes, always get what they want.
7. Network with other families, join support groups online and in person, learn from other experiences, share resources and strategies, and document your journey.
8. A diary of care needs and incidents. Take photos, videos of your daily routine if you’re comfortable with that. This creates powerful evidence for reviews and appeals.

Look at the language you’re using. You need to reframe. Instead of, “I need a nurse because my family can’t do it.” Say, “My family provides valuable emotional support and coordination, but the clinical complexity of my ventilator management requires registered nurses with critical care training. This allows my family to be family, not medical staff, which is important for our relationships and my psychological wellbeing.”

Instead of saying, “I need 24-hour care,” say, “I require 24-hour monitoring and immediate response capability due to the life-threatening nature of potential ventilator or tracheostomy emergencies. My respiratory doctors and ICU consultant has documented that continuous ICU level nursing is medically necessary for my safety.”

Instead of saying, “It’s expensive, but that’s what I need,” say, “While the annual cost is substantial, it’s significantly less than hospital-based care and enables me to live in my community, maintain family relationships and work towards my personal goals. This represents reasonable and necessary support that aligns with NDIS principles of choice and control.”

These small language shifts will make all the difference in how your plan is perceived and approved.

We’ve been going for an hour now. We’ve covered a lot of topics. I want to say once again, thank you for joining. I want to say one more time, you hold all the cards. Keep in mind, ICU bed in a hospital costs 5,000 to 10,000 dollars per bed day. Home care is half of that.

The NDIS has an interest in funding. If they don’t fund, people will die. People have died. We have so many case studies where we can show evidence that people have died under a support worker model. On a positive note, we have so many case studies where people have been alive for many years with intensive care nursing, because the evidence supports that, and we’ve been providing the service.

A reminder, we provide Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS support coordination if you need help. We’re experts in both fields, NDIS support coordination as well as the critical care nursing aspect at home.

I do apologize if I can’t get to all questions now. I usually only have an hour for these presentations. I encourage you to tune in again next week at the same time where we cover another topic.

Leave your comments, let me know what you think. Share this video with your friends and families who need this information. Leave your comments, subscribe to my YouTube channel and click the like button.

Thank you very much for watching. I wish you a wonderful Sunday, a wonderful weekend, wherever you are, and I will talk to you throughout the week in my quick tip videos and next week.

Take care for now.

 

About Intensive Care at Home

With all of that said, with Intensive Care at Home, we are currently sending our critical care nurses into the home 24 hours a day. Therefore, we are providing a genuine alternative to long-term stay in intensive care for:

• Ventilation
• Tracheostomy
• Home BiPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) ventilation without tracheostomy
• Tracheostomy care without ventilation
• Home TPN
• Home IV potassium
• Home IV magnesium
• Home IV antibiotics
• Home IV fluids

We’re providing:

• Cough assist management at home
• Ventilation weaning management at home
• Central line, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line, Hickman’s line as well as port management at home
• Nasogastric tube, nasojejunostomy tube, PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy), PEJ (Percutaneous Endoscopic Jejunostomy) tube management at home
• IDC (Indwelling Catheter) and SPC (Suprapubic Catheter) management at home
• Palliative care services at home

We’re also sending our critical care nurses into the home for emergency department bypass services. We have done so successfully as part of the Western Sydney Local Health District’s In Touch program, saving approximately $2,000 per patient that we keep at home instead of them going into an emergency department.

That also means we’re in a position to cut the cost of an ICU bed by around 50%. An intensive care bed costs between $5,000 to $10,000 per bed day depending on location. Intensive Care at Home costs approximately 50% of that, and we’re freeing up the most sought-after bed in the hospital, which is the ICU bed. Most importantly, we’re improving the quality of life for patients and their families, which is a win-win situation for all stakeholders.

Our Coverage and Accreditation

With Intensive Care at Home, we’re currently operating all around Australia, in all major capital cities, as well as in all regional and rural areas. We are an NDIS approved service provider all around Australia, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) and WorkSafe in Victoria as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs all around Australia.

We’re also ISO 9001:2015 accredited. Our clients and we as a service provider have also received funding through public hospitals, private health funds as well as departments of health.

We are the only service provider in Australia that has achieved third-party accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing in 2025. We have been achieving this high level of accreditation since 2012. No other provider in Australia has achieved the Intensive Care at Home level of accreditation in the community and has created more intellectual property when it comes to Intensive Care at Home nursing than we have.

This puts us in a position to employ hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined in the community. No other service provider in 2025 employs a higher skill level in the community than we do. And that enables us to look after the highest acuity adults and children in the community in Australia safely.

If You Need Help

If you’re at home already and you’re watching this or you’re stuck in an ICU and you realize that you don’t have the right level of support, I can give you many examples where we helped clients with funding, how we advocate for funding. We had to advocate successfully for funding from our first case study to many other case studies where we had to advocate successfully for funding with the right evidence of course because it is crystal clear that disability support workers for example or registered nurses without ICU experience cannot look after ventilated clients at home whether adults or children with or without a tracheostomy and it’s simply dangerous and negligent.

There are plenty of examples where clients with support worker models or even RN (registered nurse) models without ICU experience have died at home and I have evidence to back up everything that I’m saying here because it’s a bit like flying the airplane with a cabin crew instead of the pilot and it could simply be deadly.

This can be avoided by having simply 24-hour critical care nurses at home because our clients are at high risk of medical emergencies or worse without critical care nurses 24 hours. This is actually also evidence-based in the community and is documented in our evidence-based Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines on our website at intensivecareathome.com.

Think about it: in an intensive care unit in a hospital, you wouldn’t have support workers or general registered nurses looking after a critical care patient on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. So why would anyone in their right mind do that in a home care environment where there are fewer resources?

Clients that have found us have been at home long-term predictably and permanently with critical care nurses. Their alternative would have been to either die or stay in ICU long-term, and our clients don’t go back to ICU. They stay at home permanently and predictably and the insurance bodies save half of the cost of an ICU. But it’s a win-win situation all around.

We can do the same for you if you’re stuck in ICU or if you’re not safe at home, which includes the advocacy for funding and the network that goes along with it. We have always successfully advocated for our clients or we have the network to successfully advocate for you and for your family member, otherwise we wouldn’t be in business. The same again is applicable for those stuck in an ICU which is similar to many of our, if not most of our cases.

Our Support Coordination Services

This is also why we are providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS support coordination. We have a team of experienced NDIS support coordinators, and they have a wealth of knowledge. We’re also providing TAC case management and WorkSafe case management in Victoria with Lucy McCotter.

If you’re an NDIS support coordinator or a case manager or a social worker from another organization or a hospital watching this and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants, please reach out to us as well. If you’re looking for funding for nursing care for your participants and you don’t know how to go about it and how to advocate for it, what evidence to provide, I encourage you to reach out to us as well. We have the network to make that happen. We will help you with the right level of funding and with the right level of advocacy.

We’re also providing NDIS specialist nursing assessments done by critical care nurses with a legal nurse consulting background.

Join Our Team

If you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change and you want to join a very progressive, dynamic, successful, and high-performing team of critical care nurses in the community, we are employing hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined.

If you’re looking for a career change, we’re currently hiring for jobs for critical care nurses in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Albury-Wodonga, Bendigo, Geelong, Warragul, and also in Wyelangta in Victoria.

If you have worked in critical care nursing for a minimum of two years, adult ICU, pediatric ICU, ED and you have already completed a postgraduate critical care nursing qualification, we will be absolutely delighted hearing from you.

I have a disclaimer though: Because we are offering tailor-made solutions for our clients which includes regular staff, our clients do also want the same staff coming over and over again because they are so vulnerable and so special. That’s why we need regular, reliable staff.

If you’re looking for agency work where you can come and go, this will not be the right fit for you. We’re looking for consistency and our clients are looking for consistency. So please only apply with us if you can give us regular and consistent availabilities for shifts and you’re really keen on building relationships with us and with our clients. Reliability is also a must.

For Medical Professionals and Healthcare Executives

If you’re an intensive care specialist or an ED specialist, we also want to hear from you. We’re currently expanding our medical team as well.

We can also help you eliminate your bed blocks in your ICU and in your ED for your long-term patients or for your regularly readmitting patients with our critical care nursing team at home. We’re here to help to take the pressure off your ICU and ED beds. In most cases, you won’t even pay for it. Even if you do pay for it, it is so much more cost-effective than what you’re paying for in ICU and ED settings, and you get the same level of care and simply more patient and family satisfaction because you also want to partner with your consumers.

If you are a hospital executive watching this, we can help you free up your ICU and ED beds.

International Support

If you’re in the U.S. or in the UK and you’re watching this and you need help, we want to hear from you as well. We can help you there privately with one-on-one consulting and with hiring nurses privately.

Once again, our website is intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply send us an email to [email protected].

If you like my videos, click the like button, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families with Intensive Care at Home and intensive care. Click the like button, click the notification bell, and share this video with anyone who has a family member in intensive care long-term or needs to see this.

Thank you so much for watching.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com and I’ll talk to you in a few days.

Take care for now.