What is the Better Start Initiative?

From 1 July 2011, eligible children diagnosed with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, Fragile X syndrome, or a moderate or greater vision or hearing impairment, including deafblindness, will have access to funding and new Medicare items under the Better Start for Children with Disability (Better Start) initiative.

From 1 January 2013, Better Start has been expanded to include children diagnosed with:

• Prader Willi syndrome
• Williams syndrome
• Angelman syndrome
• Kabuki syndrome
• Smith-Magenis syndrome
• CHARGE syndrome
• Cornelia de Lange syndrome
• Cri du Chat syndrome or
• microcephaly.

Children in this  group who are under six (or turn six) on  1 January 2013 are eligible to register for Better Start.

Children with one of the listed disabilities are also able to access Medicare rebates  under Better Start.

The initiative includes the following components

• Funding for early intervention services and treatments for eligible children under the age of six
• Medicare items for the development of a treatment and management plan for eligible children under the age of 13
• Medicare items for up to four allied health diagnostic services and for 20 relevant allied health services (in total) for eligible children up to the age of 15 (provided the treatment and management plan is in place before the age of 13).

Information for families

Early Intervention Funding

From 1 July 2011, eligible children will be able to be registered to access early intervention funding of up to $12,000 (to a maximum of $6,000 per financial year).

The funding will be able to be used to pay for early intervention services including speech pathology, audiology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, psychology and orthoptics. Families will have until their child turns seven to use the early intervention funding.

This targeted early intervention in the pre-school years is intended to complement existing Commonwealth and State and Territory services and to assist these children to have the best possible preparation for the transition to school.

Registering Children for the Early Intervention Funding

Parents or carers of eligible children will need to register their child for the Better Start initiative before they turn six in order to access the early intervention funding.

Registration is completed by the Registration and Information Service (RIS), operated by Carers Australia. Parents and carers will be able to contact the RIS from 1 July 2011.

To register a child for the Better Start Initiative, call the RIS on 1800 242 636.

To register a child for the early intervention funding, parents or carers must provide evidence of:

• the child’s age;
• diagnosis (please refer to eligibility thresholds below);
• residential status (if applicable); and
• the child’s Centrelink generated Customer Reference Number (CRN)

To ensure children can be registered for the initiative as quickly as possible, parents and carers are encouraged to have the required documents ready prior to contacting the RIS.

Eligibility thresholds

Below are the eligibility thresholds for each of the disabilities included under the Better Start initiative. These thresholds were determined in consultation with an Expert Reference Group established by the Department.

Hearing impairment: children will be eligible if they have a hearing loss of 40 decibels or greater in the better ear, across 4 frequencies (including children with permanent conductive hearing loss and auditory neuropathy).

Sight impairment: children will be eligible if they have vision of less than or equal to 6/18 or equivalent field loss, in the better eye with correction.

Deafblindness: diagnosis by a specialist multidisciplinary team which includes an ophthalmological and audiological evaluation (therefore application of a threshold is not necessary).

Down syndrome: all children with a confirmed diagnosis of Down syndrome, including those with mosaic Down syndrome.

Fragile X syndrome: all children with a confirmed diagnosis of Fragile X syndrome with full mutation.

Cerebral palsy: all children with a confirmed diagnosis of cerebral palsy.

Medicare items

Families will be able to access the new Medicare items from 1 July 2011.

Medicare items will be introduced for:

• Specialists, consultant physicians and general practitioners for the assessment, diagnosis and development of a treatment and management plan for a child under 13 years of age.
• Psychologists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, audiologists, physiotherapists, optometrists and orthoptists to provide up to four services per child, on referral from a specialist, consultant physician or general practitioner, to assist the referring practitioner in the assessment, diagnosis and development of a treatment and management plan for a child under 13 years of age.
• Psychologists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, audiologists, physiotherapists, optometrists and orthoptists to provide up to 20 early intervention treatment services per child, consistent with the treatment and management plan prepared by the referring practitioner. Treatment services are available for a child under 15 years of age (providing the treatment and management plan is in place before the age of 13).

Children do not need to register for the Medicare component of the initiative.

For further information about the Better Start initiative, please contact the Better Start Helpline on 1800 989 530. This helpline operates from 8:30am – 5:00pm Monday to Fridays (excluding Public Holidays).

Enquiries can also be emailed to Better.Start@fahcsia.gov.au