00:00Music therapy is the highlight of four-year-old Kai Wall's week.
00:07Let's do a dance.
00:09When there's music, he just lights up.
00:14Kai is autistic and the therapy has helped him thrive.
00:17Whilst he was doing occupational therapy and speech therapy,
00:21bringing him to music therapy really brought those two therapies together
00:24and that's when we started to see progress from him.
00:27The Australian Music Therapy Association says it's outraged by changes
00:31to the way the therapy will be funded under the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
00:36We have been completely blindsided.
00:38Under the changes, music and art therapists can only bill the NDIS
00:42the current rate of $194 a session if they can show the treatment
00:46is maintaining or improving a participant's functional capacity.
00:51Otherwise, they must be billed at $68 for an individual session,
00:55a change practitioners say will force many to shut down.
00:59I am very aware that there are music therapists that have already put their staff on notice
01:04that if this decision can't be overturned, there will be no jobs.
01:08The change is part of the government's attempt to rein in the $42 billion NDIS budget.
01:15Therapist Grace Elliott says music therapy is based on a wealth of evidence.
01:21And you have to do a two-year master's degree to be a registered music therapist.
01:26The agency that runs the NDIS says music therapy doesn't meet the evidence standards
01:31to automatically qualify for the higher subsidy.
01:35Therapists dispute this, but the agency says it will refer individual provider claims
01:40to its new evidence advisory committee.
01:43The industry is vowing to keep going until the music stops.
01:50For more information, visit www.fema.gov
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