August 19, 2025 • 44 mins
When the government announced sudden changes to the NDIS with only weeks’ notice, allied health business owners across Australia were thrown into crisis mode. For Judy Scott, occupational therapist and founder of My Therapy Crew, it meant pivoting her business while staying true to the values-led culture she’s nurtured over years of practice.
From starting out in a converted garage after redundancy, Judy has grown My Therapy Crew into a thriving multidisciplinary service with more than 80 staff. In this episode, she shares what the recent policy shifts mean for providers and clients alike – from systemic frustrations that place paperwork over people, to the ripple effects already being felt across the sector with closures, redundancies, and surging referrals to those still able to deliver care.
This episode is for anyone wanting to understand the human impact of NDIS reform, for clinicians navigating a rapidly changing system, and for leaders committed to building healthcare services that balance purpose with sustainability.
It Takes Heart is hosted by cmr CEO Sam Miklos, alongside Head of Talent and Employer Branding, Kate Coomber.
We Care; Music by Waveney Yasso
More about Judy's Organisations of Choice, The Christmas Party Darwin
The Christmas Parties are Australia’s largest events for children with disabilities and complex needs, with the Darwin Party giving up to 1,200 children from Darwin and surrounds the chance to experience the magic of Christmas in a safe, inclusive setting. Free and invitation-only, the event lets kids aged birth to twelve set aside therapies and treatments for a few hours to simply have fun, surrounded by a community wider than their family and carers.
Get to know cmr better!
Follow @ittakesheartpodcast on Instagram, @cmr | Cornerstone Medical Recruitment on Linked In, @cornerstonemedicalrec on TikTok and @CornerstoneMedicalRecruitment on Facebook.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Samantha Miklos (00:00):
There's been big changes to the NDIS recently
, but what is the real impactthat these changes are having on
allied health businesses acrossAustralia?
Judy Scott (00:07):
They've made cuts to what allied health providers
can charge and it only droppedtwo and a half weeks before the
changes had to be implemented.
So as business owners likeevery single allied health
business owner has been frantic,it's pretty astronomical.
Kate Coomber (00:22):
To hear more of these important conversations,
don't forget to hit the followor subscribe button.
And don't forget to follow usover on Instagram for all the
behind the scenes fun.
Samantha Miklos (00:37):
Okay, so today we are joined by Judy Scott,
occupational therapist andfounder of my Therapy Crew and a
strong voice for allied healthprofessionals.
Welcome Judy to.
It Takes Heart.
Thank you.
Judy Scott (00:48):
I'm so glad to be here with you both.
Samantha Miklos (00:50):
And I'm kind of excited to have you here
because you're our first OT,which is strange, actually.
Kate Coomber (00:55):
Yes, Apologies to OT, because that's an oversight.
I know right, we are the bestprofessions.
Judy Scott (00:59):
I can't believe you've left us till now.
Samantha Miklos (01:02):
And the fact that we've, in the first five
minutes, we're connected to somany OTs as well, and we've
worked with you in the past aswell.
So there's all theseconnections with OT.
Kate Coomber (01:12):
But you trained as an OT.
I did not.
So for me and for everyone else, what is an OT?
What is occupational therapy?
Samantha Miklos (01:20):
Because don't you think that is like no one
ever knows?
Judy Scott (01:23):
what they do.
Samantha Miklos (01:24):
Yes and I remember starting the degree and
thinking I still don't get it.
Judy Scott (01:27):
Yeah, 100%.
Do you know the start of ourdegree?
We actually spend the first sixmonths learning to define
occupational therapy, really.
Samantha Miklos (01:34):
I must have missed those lessons.
Kate Coomber (01:36):
I was like you could have been helpful.
Samantha Miklos (01:38):
I should have stayed on a bit longer, yeah
well, I promise you did it.
Judy Scott (01:41):
Yeah, yeah, I promise you did it.
And even like our new grads,I've been asking them and they
still do that the first sixmonths of the degree, because
we're still so poorly understood.
I think if I was naming theprofession even though this is
super wordy I would call usactivities of daily living
therapists, because the way weuse the word occupation is that
it's every activity of dailyliving that you might do and
(02:03):
we're looking to facilitateindependence and quality of life
.
So we want to make sure thatwhatever you want to do whether
it's, you know, eating a meal,sitting in a chair, going out,
driving, whatever it is that youcan do that as independently
and safely as possible.
And we look at like sometimeswe use, you know, alternative
strategies or equipment items todo that.
Sometimes we change theenvironment.
(02:25):
So there's heaps and heaps ofways that we facilitate
independence.
So I guess that's across lotsof settings I was just gonna say
do you think?
Kate Coomber (02:32):
you know, I guess I probably first learned about
ot was having children and, yes,schools mentioned at once.
Yeah, how does that work, youknow?
So it, yeah, there must be lotsof settings.
Judy Scott (02:41):
There's heaps of places ots can work.
It's so, so broad, which ispart of what I think makes the
profession great, because youcan move like you might start in
paediatrics with kids and notreally enjoy that, and so you
could go into a work rehab typerole, which is completely
different.
They even have OTs working outwith people in the mines, like
it's everywhere.
Heaps and heaps of differentsectors, so pa, pediatrics, aged
(03:04):
care, hospitals, just it'severywhere.
Most people, though, won't needan OT unless they've got
something significant going on,except for, say, kids doing
handwriting, which is theclassic where that's like the
gateway drug to OT.
Samantha Miklos (03:17):
You've got a kid who needs help with
handwriting.
I love it.
Why did you want to become anoccupational therapist?
You're so passionate about it?
Yes, I love it.
Why did you want to become anoccupational therapist?
You're so passionate about it?
Yes, I love it.
Did you go?
Judy Scott (03:26):
straight into OT.
I'm really lucky because, yeah,I did figure it out when I was
in high school that that's theone that I would do and, weirdly
, one of my friend's siblingswas studying OT.
So that's sort of how I heardabout it.
But before that, reallyinterestingly.
So I knew I wanted to work inhealthcare but I just I didn't
(03:49):
know which way I was going to go.
Kate Coomber (03:49):
I looked at social work was kind of talked out of
that.
Looked at psychology talked outof that wasn't fit enough.
Did you have influence aroundyou?
Who worked in health care thatmade you want to work in health
care?
Judy Scott (03:55):
Do you know, really unusually, no one, not really in
my immediate family.
My auntie was a nurse and mycousin, who was older than me,
was doing social work, but thatwas kind of it.
So I didn't really understandthis draw inside of me to go
into health care.
I sort of worked that out laterin life as to how I landed
there.
Yeah, naturally nurturing yeah.
Kate Coomber (04:18):
I think yeah what was it?
Samantha Miklos (04:20):
what was?
That, that happened to you.
Judy Scott (04:22):
Like I am naturally nurturing.
But the origin story for mereally is that I grew up with a
mum who was extremely unwell.
So my mum had chronic migraines, and this isn't just where you
feel a bit sick, like shecouldn't work, she was in bed
half the week.
Our whole family structure wasaround my mum and, like mum's
migraines, I wouldn't know untilI got home from school whether
(04:46):
or not she was having a good dayor a bad day, and so as I would
walk in the driveway I couldtell that the blinds were down,
so I knew mum's in bed, blindsup, mum's up.
But I only worked this out likethrough years of therapy.
It's so funny because I love mymum.
I was, so you know, defensiveand protective of her and I
never really wanted toacknowledge that her being sick
had had an impact on my life.
(05:07):
And so it was, as I was gettingcounselling I'm a big advocate
for counselling too Like go getsome therapy get some help, but
it was also your standard right.
Kate Coomber (05:15):
It was your normal , so you didn't know any
different.
Judy Scott (05:17):
That's exactly right To know that it wasn't typical,
definitely Like when you growup.
Whatever environment we grow upin, it's normal for us.
Yeah, but yeah, that was goingthrough counselling helped me
figure out.
Oh, it's actually because I wascaring for my mum.
I was a young carer, yeah, andthat's how I ended up being a
healthcare professional yeah.
Samantha Miklos (05:35):
is there anything now, years on being in
OT, that that you think is justmisunderstood?
Or you think I wish people knewthat, I wish I'd known that at
uni about being in OT?
Judy Scott (05:47):
How, just how incredible it is like the
difference that you can make inpeople's lives.
Like I think when you go intouni you sort of have this a bit
of hope, like oh yep, I'm goingto be a health professional, I'm
going to be doing somethingmeaningful.
But actually, particularly inthe type of field I'm in, I'm in
(06:11):
complex disability you're I getto journey with people through
years, like I get to know theirfamilies, like I don't know
their friends, uncle, like justso many people in their lives,
and so it's like you actuallybecome a part of their own,
their fabric, yeah, of who theyare, um, and that's.
It's such a privilege, yeahthat's.
I didn't really understand justhow significant that was the
relationships.
Kate Coomber (06:28):
How did you get to there then?
If you didn't understand that,that would be the scope, why?
Did you specialise In complexdisability, in complex
disability, yeah.
Judy Scott (06:35):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's an interesting onetoo, because again at uni I
didn't know what part of OT Iwanted to do.
I didn't think I wanted to dodisability, but you have to do
placements.
So back when I went through wedid four seven-week placements.
It's a bit different now, oh isit different now?
Yeah, they only do two 10-weekplacements.
Kate Coomber (06:53):
Oh wow, yeah, it's really different.
There were so many.
It minimises the exposure rightof different settings.
Judy Scott (07:09):
And that was also hard too, because there were so
many things you could do, butyou were limited to just have a
little slice of some of thoseexperiences, and everyone wanted
paediatrics.
Yes, I know it's so strange.
I think, though, that's becauseso we, sam and I, went through
the same uni, just differenttimes.
I think that's because our headof OT at the time was a
paediatric yeah, person, that'swhy yeah, because it's changed
since then a little bit yeahyeah, but anyway we did four
placements.
I did not list disability likeon my placement options at all,
didn't want to do it um, hadmore of an interest in, you know
(07:31):
, pediatrics and I was likepediatrics occupational rehab.
Samantha Miklos (07:35):
Yeah, um, I did oncology really, yeah, I really
enjoy.
I actually really loved workingin that when I did did go out
and work, it was a combined roleof palliative care and
pediatrics.
That is so fascinating.
Yeah, I loved the two ends.
I don't know?
Judy Scott (07:50):
Yeah, interesting, whereas I did two hospital
placements out of my four and Ihated them, did you, yep?
Samantha Miklos (07:57):
Isn't that weird.
Kate Coomber (07:58):
What did you hate?
Judy Scott (07:58):
about them.
To be honest, I had a really Ihad a bit of a tricky
relationship with my firstsupervisor and it's amazing how
much they call it clinicaleducator now.
Amazing how much your clinicaleducator impacts your experience
.
Samantha Miklos (08:12):
That's very true because my first one was
impalliative and she was soamazing and I just I idolised
her, yeah.
Judy Scott (08:19):
Yeah Well, similarly then, my disability placement,
which is a placement I didn'twant.
I adored my clinical educator.
Samantha Miklos (08:26):
So you end up sorry, we keep jumping.
You ended up getting there.
Judy Scott (08:29):
Yeah, I got a placement there and then loved
my clinical educator and thenfell in love with the type of
work where you actually get toknow whole families and
stakeholder groups and so, yeah,I got a job from uni in DSQ
Disability Services Queenslandand I was there for 15 years
until I got made redundant.
So, yeah, it was amazing, Iloved it.
Samantha Miklos (08:49):
So let's talk about my Therapy Crew, is that?
Kate Coomber (08:51):
how my Therapy Crew started.
Because you started just athome in the garage.
Samantha Miklos (08:57):
Yeah, I loved when I heard that.
Judy Scott (09:00):
Yeah, isn't that how every small business?
Samantha Miklos (09:01):
starts.
Yeah, I was in a front room.
Kate Coomber (09:04):
However, yes, but you weren't seeing patients
coming in.
Samantha Miklos (09:09):
No, I did have that thought just then.
I was like, oh, they're goingto the garage.
Kate Coomber (09:12):
It was so insane.
Judy Scott (09:13):
Look, and when I say that our garage, we got it
converted beautifully.
My friend happens to be abuilder and she did a beautiful
job converting our garage into ahome office for me, so it
looked nice.
But yeah, it was the garage.
Samantha Miklos (09:26):
It's a garage, yeah, which is pretty crazy.
Judy Scott (09:29):
So had you been made redundant.
Samantha Miklos (09:30):
Yes, or had this always been ruminating for
you?
Judy Scott (09:33):
No, okay.
So I loved my work inDisability Services Queensland
and then we all had warning forabout three years we were going
to be made redundant.
That's a really weird way towork like to have a three-year
long date.
Samantha Miklos (09:46):
It's like I'm going to break up with you soon,
but not yet.
But just wait, just hang inthere.
Judy Scott (09:50):
It was very strange but it was because I loved my
job.
It was worth it to me to stickit out to the end Like people
kind of peeled off as we went,but for me I stayed, you know,
until the redundancies came outand redundancies came out and
then the only way at that timebecause OT wasn't the world that
it is now where now, there'sOTs are just in high demand and
can go get a job anywhere.
That didn't exist yet then, andthe only way that I knew that I
(10:14):
could keep working with theclient group that I loved was to
work for myself, and we didn'thave anything like non-competes
because the government waswinding up, so there was no
nothing saying you can't workwith your clients, because there
was nowhere for these clientsto go, and I was well known in
the industry in SouthsideBrisbane because that's where
I'd been working for 15 years.
Yeah, so I had heaps of peoplewho were like my clients, who
(10:37):
were looking for a service, andso, yeah, it got made redundant,
went on a week long cruise withmy family and then came back
and it was amazing.
I came back to so many emailsand messages and requests, and
requests.
Kate Coomber (10:48):
And where are you?
Yeah, for work.
Judy Scott (10:49):
So, yeah, it was a really crazy time.
So, yeah, I worked for myself.
I mostly I tried to go out toclients because of the fact that
it was at my home and did youhave kids running around the
house?
Yes, like what phase of life wasthis, oh my goodness, Because
it's a few years ago now.
So my kids were.
My oldest is now 19.
But she, when we started thebusiness she was 14.
(11:09):
But I was working for myselfbefore that, so you know they
were between 8 and 13,.
My kids I've got four of them.
Kate Coomber (11:17):
Yeah, Sorry, that was a reaction, so busy I've got
that reaction.
Samantha Miklos (11:23):
No, beautiful, are you okay?
Oh, my God, I feel like three.
I'm so outnumbered, I'm likeforever.
Like if everyone's got shoes on, it's a win.
Yes, oh yeah, yeah.
Judy Scott (11:32):
It's absolutely a win when everyone's got shoes on
.
But yeah, it was crazy.
So I would have clients comeinto the home.
I'd use my rumpus room as atherapy space.
It was crazy, and then, as thebusiness grew because we
actually started in the house,so I had other therapists coming
into the house.
How soon did you bring yourfirst therapist in?
I worked for myself on my ownfor A year and doing some
(11:55):
subcontracting as well, yeah,but yeah, working on my own for
a year.
And then my husband is anaccountant and he specialises in
small business accounting.
That's convenient.
Samantha Miklos (12:05):
Yeah, Like mine , he does IT and systems.
I was going to say it's sosimilar that you're the opposite
.
You can do all the things Ican't do.
Judy Scott (12:11):
Yeah, he is phenomenal, yeah.
And so he kept saying to melike I think you can, I think we
can build a business from this.
Yeah, you should reallyseriously consider employing
someone.
And I was terrified of the idea.
I still remember the firstphone call with someone who
actually was an allied healthassistant so not an OT for the
first employee and phoning tohim and talking about things
like salary, where I just had noclue.
Samantha Miklos (12:32):
I had to do that with you.
I was like I don't even have adesk for you.
Judy Scott (12:37):
I don't know, I don't know what to do with you.
He's like I'll come.
Samantha Miklos (12:39):
I was like I don't know what to do.
Judy Scott (12:40):
Yeah, well, it's exactly like that.
So I just set up a desk for himin my and you're a clinician.
Kate Coomber (12:44):
Yeah.
Judy Scott (12:52):
So you're passionate about the clients and the
caseloads?
Yeah yeah, and had his deskthere and then would go out and
see clients, which I'd write upthe allied health assistant plan
for him and he'd go see themand then I did a post.
It's so funny.
My sister used to tease mebecause we used to be called my
OT Crew and so, yeah, that'swhere we started from.
And I had a page, my OT Crew,and she would just joke with me.
(13:13):
She's like what your crew ofone person Back when it was me.
Samantha Miklos (13:15):
Oh, all right, it's a vision.
Judy Scott (13:17):
Exactly.
Kate Coomber (13:18):
I can choose a crew.
Judy Scott (13:21):
Yeah, and I did a post and then one of my uni
friends reached out to me andshe's like, hey, I want to know
a bit about private practice.
And I was like thinking shewanted me to tell her how to run
a private practice.
And she's like, no, I want towork for you.
And I could not, could notbelieve it in my wildest dreams
that someone from my cohortwould trust me, trust me enough
to.
They left a government job.
Kate Coomber (13:42):
Yeah, to come and work for them.
Yeah, and let me employ them.
Judy Scott (13:45):
But then that started a whole new journey of
figuring out how to do contracts.
And, oh my goodness, what doyou?
Kate Coomber (13:49):
think it was that people saw in you to go yeah, I
want to be a part of that.
Judy Scott (13:54):
I'm naturally really passionate about the work that
we do, like I, I just love theclients so much, you know, and I
think they deserve qualityservices, so it's probably just
that.
Kate Coomber (14:07):
Is it word of mouth?
Or were you very heavily onsocials Like, how were you
getting that message out?
How was everyone finding you it?
Judy Scott (14:12):
was the whole.
First three years of thebusiness was just word of mouth.
So my first year working on myown and three years of the
business, so four yearsaltogether.
We didn't pay a cent formarketing or anything.
Then we got too big to kind ofkeep carrying Like by then, you
know, I can't even remember weprobably had 30 therapists at
(14:33):
that point because we've had ourbiggest growth in the last two
years.
But yeah, then we had to start,you know, spending money on the
Google.
Samantha Miklos (14:38):
Gods, yeah, seo all of that sort of stuff, you
run on the smell of an oily ragto start with, and then it gets
to the point where you're like,right, we actually have to
really lean in now and do somemore.
So today is it like 80 staff orsomething now Yep, Yep we've
got just so many.
Kate Coomber (14:55):
Over how many clinics?
Yeah, how many clinics.
And where are you?
Are you still in the garage,are you still at home or have
you now got a house?
Samantha Miklos (15:02):
running around.
Can you imagine if I had 80people in my house?
Judy Scott (15:07):
I'm like should we notify the council?
Yeah, so we have 80 staff,we're just over and we've got
five clinics now, which ispretty amazing All in Brisbane.
No, so we've got two to threeare in Brisbane, because we've
got two Brisbane Southside andthen our Brisbane North is all
the way up at North Lakes, soit's kind of that gateway like
up to Caboolture as well.
And then we have the SunshineCoast and we actually have a
(15:28):
clinic in Darwin.
Wow, yeah, I've got a few OTsover there.
Samantha Miklos (15:32):
How did that happen?
I was just about to say how didyou get to Darwin?
Judy Scott (15:36):
Yeah, so I'm with us with starting the business with
having.
So we moved from the house to abig clinic, which was wild in
itself.
Samantha Miklos (15:44):
Yeah, that would have been a really special
moment.
Judy Scott (15:46):
So crazy.
So we were up to 14 staff whenwe were in the house, which is
crazy.
Just FYI, I didn't know thatthat was against Brisbane City
Council regulations.
Samantha Miklos (15:56):
I found that out after Just about to say that
yeah, I found that out aftershe stood out to say that, yeah,
I didn't know I was up in thekitchen.
Judy Scott (16:02):
Yeah, details, details, do you?
Samantha Miklos (16:05):
know what, though?
That's interesting, though,because when you do start a
business, you've been aclinician and then all of a
sudden, you're running a privatepractice, that's right, it's a
baptism of fire and yousometimes fake it until you make
it.
Judy Scott (16:16):
Yep.
No one told me I had no idea.
Samantha Miklos (16:19):
And then, thankfully, surely the
neighbours were like what isgoing on?
And then, if you're in and outseeing clients like there's
watching cars yeah well, therewere cars everywhere, kids.
Kate Coomber (16:25):
They're just like you know add a few friends, a
couple of nannies.
They're just used to a lot ofpeople.
Judy Scott (16:42):
Yeah, our neighbours did work and everything, but we
did actually it's so ironic, wemoved into the clinic the first
clinic and we got a letter inthe mail that week from Brisbane
City Council saying are yourunning a business from home?
No, I am not.
Yeah, so big clinic.
And then a couple of years agowe had outgrown that and didn't
know kind of what to do.
We're considering how do we dothis because, as the business
owner, when I'm so invested andI love you know, love what we do
so much I didn't know kind ofwhat to do.
We're considering how do we dothis Because, as the business
owner, when I'm so invested andI love you know, love what we do
(17:02):
so much, I didn't know if ourbeautiful culture would
translate over a second site.
So we tested it out with a smallsite to start with to see how
that went.
And then, only a few monthslater, interestingly, I had a
phone call from my mentor andshe was just in a position where
she needed to stop running herown business and she had about
10 clinics and she asked me ifwe'd consider buying three of
(17:25):
them and what we decided to do.
Like sometimes people do thatand they keep the original
branding.
We didn't want to do that.
We wanted to fully merge theminto my Therapy Crew to make
them our brand.
To make them our brand Now,like those sites.
That was only a year ago now,and those sites have grown so
much that there's only you knowthere's a few original staff
members.
Most of them have stayed, whichhas been awesome, but, yeah,
(17:47):
they've all been indoctrinatedinto the MTC way.
Samantha Miklos (17:50):
Yeah, Talk to us about that.
Like the way, like cultureseems to be really important to
you.
That's always been somethingwe've talked about is like
different sites, and how do youkeep that?
What is your culture?
Judy Scott (17:59):
and what do you do?
Samantha Miklos (18:00):
to foster that.
Judy Scott (18:02):
Yeah, so we have really strong vision and values.
Anyone who works for us couldquote them for you and explain
how we live them out.
And so our four values arealways learning, dependable,
contributing and nurturing whatwe tried to do, because Matt and
and I that's my husband um, welove the business so much.
As I've said, they, those fourvalues, are really us on paper,
(18:24):
like our kids could tell youthat they're kind of the
blending of our four styles, ourstyles together, into those
four values.
Um, and what I found is that ifyou live out rituals and
routines that are connected tothe values across all of the
sites, then that's how youtranslate that culture yeah yeah
(18:44):
.
So all of the sites like they'vegot a little bit of their own
flavor, but they would all beable to testify to those values.
So we have in-houseprofessional development in
every single site once afortnight.
You know things like that.
We have one of our ways ofnurturing is we put on a weekly
lunch for all of our staff.
So every single site once afortnight.
You know things like that.
We have one of our ways ofnurturing is we put on a weekly
lunch for all of our staff.
So every single site.
That means I'm catering 80lunches a week.
Kate Coomber (19:05):
Wow, I imagine that's pretty rare in health for
someone to have that sort ofenvironment, not even health
like other businesses, right, orany business really.
It's all that stuff that peoplego.
Judy Scott (19:14):
Oh, it's too costly or what's the value in it, but
it's those memorable moments.
That's it.
Well, it's because for me and Iknow this sounds so altruistic,
but it's just part of who I amand who my husband is Like we
really want to create abeautiful place for people to
work, and that's why we investin this way.
Yeah, I want their memories oftheir time with us to be that we
(19:36):
made a positive impact on them,that my therapy crew made a
positive impact on them.
Yeah, that's what we're goingfor.
Samantha Miklos (19:42):
Yeah, so learning, I was thinking that,
and lunches, what else?
What are some other greatthings you do?
Judy Scott (19:47):
Yeah, we have very consistent supervision.
So in occupational therapy,clinical supervision is really
important and we haveexperienced therapists.
Samantha Miklos (19:56):
Sorry, we're not just OTs now, I was just
going to say yeah, I was justgoing to say Tell me, I know
there are uni students nowcoming out and doing placement
with you.
Kate Coomber (20:04):
Yeah, I mean like that's full circle.
Hey, it's not 80 OTs.
Judy Scott (20:08):
No, it's not Sorry, I neglected kind of that step
along the way.
Samantha Miklos (20:10):
That's all right.
Judy Scott (20:11):
Talk us through.
We have physios and speechpathologists, we have a music
therapist, we have behavioursupport practitioners and we
have allied health assistantsand then a really big
administrative team.
So all of those conversationsas well at the start were so big
.
The first physio that I hiredlike he was somebody that I knew
(20:33):
.
I didn't know him well, but Iknew him enough to have a
conversation, because you've gotto be really brave to be the
first of your discipline to comein when it's you know, so
heavily OT based.
But yeah, he's done a phenomenaljob of growing our physio
department.
And then same with the firstspeechy.
She was somebody I worked withback at DSQ and she was brave
enough to come over and be myfirst speechy and pave the way
(20:54):
our music therapist actually dida placement with us, even
though we didn't have any musictherapists.
Because that's part of howtheir degree works they have to
do a placement in a place whichdoesn't have music therapy,
right.
Kate Coomber (21:06):
And to try and create something and have a
thought of where could I fit?
Yeah, absolutely and add value.
Yeah.
Judy Scott (21:11):
So then over time we've now run new graduate
programs three years in a row,because I think we've got such
great clinicians and.
I want to keep feeding into ourprofessions.
Samantha Miklos (21:23):
Yeah, and that graduate year is so key, like if
they've got great mentors ifthey're with a great team like
that's what keeps them reallysticky to the profession.
Whereas I think, if it's not agreat first year, that's where
they're gone.
Kate Coomber (21:36):
Yeah, and are people still choosing OT, like
in the same levels that theywere?
Is it growing?
Is it declining?
Where is the you know peoplegoing into?
Judy Scott (21:44):
it.
It is so much bigger than itwas when I studied.
Yeah, wow, Like when Sam and Iwent through.
It's like we had 90 people.
Samantha Miklos (21:50):
I was just going to say we had 90 people in
the year.
I went through Really.
Judy Scott (21:54):
Now there's like 10 unis that do it in southeast
Queensland or something likethat, whereas before it was on
the UQ.
Samantha Miklos (21:59):
Why is there such a?
You said earlier like there'ssuch high demand for OTs.
Now why?
What's different?
Judy Scott (22:05):
Yeah.
So I think it's because, as OThas evolved and people can see,
because it's so broad and youcan see the real-life
application of OT in all thesedifferent spaces, it's just it's
naturally been in demand.
One thing that's definitelydriven it is the if you've heard
of the NDIS- yeah.
Yeah, that's been a big driverin OT because a lot of the NDIS
(22:29):
decisions are based offoccupational therapy reports.
Kate Coomber (22:31):
Right, so talk us through NDIS.
What is it?
How does it interact, I guess,with you and your business?
Judy Scott (22:38):
Yeah, so what's the role?
Kate Coomber (22:40):
of the NDIA.
Samantha Miklos (22:42):
What does it stand for All the people?
My mum's listening right nowlike educator.
Judy Scott (22:46):
Yeah, I would love to.
So we always talk about theNDIS, but there's two different
things.
So there's the NDIA NationalDisability Insurance Agency, and
that's actually the publicservice department.
Those are like the governmentworkers.
And then we commonly just saythe NDIS National Disability
Insurance Scheme, but the schemeis actually the dollars.
It's the money behind it.
(23:07):
But everyone's just so used tojust saying the NDIS.
Really, it's the NDIA that weinteract with, if that makes
sense.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, so what they did backwhen I was in Disability
Services Queensland, all of theservices for people with
disability were run by thestates, so every state had a
different system.
If you worked for theequivalent of DSQ down in New
(23:27):
South Wales, you actually tendedto work more with people with
physical disabilities.
In DSQ in Queensland, we workedwith people with intellectual
disabilities and you had to havean IQ rating of less than 65 to
be eligible, so there wereheaps of barriers for people
getting services.
So what they decided to do andthey wanted to make it more
uniform across all of thecountry is they reabsorbed all
(23:48):
of the state funding back intofederal, which is why we were
all made redundant, because theyhad to pull that money back and
then they popped it intofederal and then spit out this
scheme that is supposed tosupport people with disabilities
any kind of disability allaround the country, Right?
Kate Coomber (24:03):
So was that a good thing at the time.
Yeah, or how was it?
Yeah, was it received?
Well, problematic Such acomplicated question.
Samantha Miklos (24:12):
I was just about to say that from your face
.
Judy Scott (24:14):
I was like yeah, it's so complicated because, yes
, in principle, yes, it's a goodthing, absolutely.
So many more people areeligible for services now.
We in the state government itwas so difficult because there
were people that would like onlyjust miss out on being eligible
for a service for us and ifthere was no non-government
option for them, they justwouldn't get a service, like
(24:35):
they wouldn't receive supportand help.
Kate Coomber (24:38):
And so is this about people being able to pay
for the service or evenaccessing, if they chose to fund
it themselves.
Was that an option, or this iseven to be acknowledged in the
service?
Judy Scott (24:50):
So anyone can pay for services like our business,
for instance.
We would see anyone.
But even back then, back thenthere weren't really private
services, so like there mighthave been small therapy
companies or people would go seephysios like physios, have
always seen mainstream provided,mainstream services.
But you know it would just belike a mum who wanted to get
(25:11):
assistance for handwriting fortheir kid yeah, it wasn't,
wasn't the way it is now.
Um, really, the ndis providesfunding for people to receive
services and they had their ownplans.
So where before in stategovernment it was block funded.
So I was attached to a house.
I was the OT for a region,right?
(25:31):
Yeah depending on what team Iwas in.
Yeah, so, if you were in thisregion.
You had no choice about thematter.
Judy Scott was your OT.
Yeah, you know Whereas nowpeople get their own funding
plans and they choose where theyget their services from.
Right, okay.
Samantha Miklos (25:45):
So has that lifted the quality of services
too, because people are optingto choose their provider?
Yeah, I think so.
Judy Scott (25:53):
It definitely relies on the provider having strong
ethics, which I'm proud to saywe do.
We want to provide a goodservice.
We want quality clinicians,which is why we invest so much
in professional development andsupervision.
Because I want to be confident,it's one of my career
objectives to provide qualityclinical services to people with
a disability.
So I want to be sure that thetherapists I'm sending out who
(26:15):
are representing MTC are doing agreat job.
But, yeah, it's just totallytransformed the system.
So, even more than just makingus provide better services, it's
just completely different,because now you have all of
these private practices allaround the place.
Samantha Miklos (26:31):
Yeah, so there's a lot of private
practice that has evolved andpopped up in recent years.
Judy Scott (26:38):
Like in the five years we've been in business and
you know the seven years sinceNDIS came in astronomical growth
.
Like so some providers were outthere before, but because the
services like back when Istarted working on my own, even
I had so many referrals, like Iwas just working all the time
because I was the person takingthe phone call from somebody and
(26:59):
and I love people withdisabilities, so I couldn't say
no, so I just would work, youknow, endless hours because I
wanted to fulfill this need.
So it's just been astronomical.
And then, with the way the NDISworks in, they brought in these
things called functionalcapacity assessments which OTs
write, and then they kind ofit's like they legislated it
like you have to have a currentFCA to be able to you know if
(27:22):
you need a change in housing inthe NDIS.
Samantha Miklos (27:25):
So there's all of these, all this work yeah,
just heaps and heaps of work butthen has there been some
changes though to the NDISrecently?
Judy Scott (27:33):
yes, what are those changes?
Samantha Miklos (27:35):
and what do?
Judy Scott (27:35):
they mean Was it broken or?
Well, I think what people see,and it's fair is that the NDIS
it does cost the Australiantaxpayer a lot of money, you
know, and I appreciate that.
So they decided to try andreduce the cost to the taxpayer.
But the focus that they'vetaken is they've actually
(27:56):
they've made cuts to what alliedhealth providers can charge.
This has a massive impact onthe allied health industry.
So what they did is, they said,for travel, when you're
travelling to a client, you cannow only charge half your normal
rate In our type of work.
When you're working with peoplewith complex disabilities, we
have to travel to their homes.
(28:17):
Yes, we have five clinics, ourclinics are beautiful, we have
some clients who can come in,but for many, many clients,
that's just not the way they canreceive services.
Kate Coomber (28:26):
And what do you think is the idea behind that?
It's a very specific cut, isn'tit?
Of travel?
Yeah, Is it just an idea tohelp with funding?
Judy Scott (28:35):
Honestly, what I have heard is it's like somebody
just threw that around as anidea in the room, it almost
feels like the reverse is neededbecause they can't access
Absolutely.
Yeah, and in the NDIS all oftheir online stuff that you can
research yourself they actuallyacknowledge that therapy in the
natural environment is best forpeople.
So it's ironic because they saythis in one way, but then they
(28:59):
tell us yeah, you can't if youtravel to people's houses,
you're only going to be able tocharge half the rate, which, for
a business, is completelyunsustainable.
It's had a massive impact onbusinesses.
I think they just wanted tosqueeze allied health because by
nature and this is me speakingas an OT by nature we're caring
people and they're like they'rejust going to keep going, no
matter how hard we make this.
(29:20):
they will keep going because welove the clients, rather than
finding other ways that theycould have addressed issues in
the scheme.
They also most insultingly,they lowered some rates.
So they lowered the charge-outrate for a physiotherapist by
$10 an hour and I just thinkanyone with any kind of
understanding of business wouldknow this is going to have a
(29:40):
huge impact on all of theseproviders.
Kate Coomber (29:42):
yeah, are they?
Are they not seeing it as avaluable you know?
Is it a nice to have serviceversus a need to have you know?
Judy Scott (29:52):
is it?
Yeah, I can't make sense of itbecause in within the way the
NDIS set up, they're reliant onwork from the allied health
professionals.
We're the only part of thescheme that actually focuses
properly on capacity building,so trying to increase a person's
independence, and they'rereliant on us, like we're the
(30:13):
ones who write all the reportsto get the person wheelchairs or
whatever it is they need.
You have to do all of thosetrials in home or in the
community.
You just simply can't do it inthe clinic.
You can't mimic, you can'tassess it properly.
If I just did it in the clinic,I kid you not the NDIS would
write back to me and say whereis your evidence that this is
going to work in their home?
So, I honestly think it was justso short-sighted.
(30:34):
It must have been.
It was so funny because the onethat came online actually had
errors in it.
It had all of these red linesand errors in it and we're like
somebody has done this sohastily.
It's still in draft.
Yeah, it's still in draft form,and it only dropped two and a
half weeks before the changeshad to be implemented.
(30:58):
So, as business owners, likeevery single allied health
business owner, has been frantic, so we've been frantically
advocating.
So if you go on my facebookpage, which I made public, which
I never do, um like, there'sall of these videos of me just
trying to explain what's goingon to get people on board to
sign the petition.
Um, and then we also had topivot and change our whole
(31:19):
business models and we had tocommunicate those changes to our
clients.
so I had to pay love, to do itbut I had to pay my admin staff
over time to communicate thosechanges to our clients.
So I had to pay love to do it,but I had to pay my admin staff
over time to communicate changesto clients for something that
was going to cost us money.
Kate Coomber (31:32):
And what's the impact of that been for you and
your business?
I was just going to ask yourbusiness, yeah, because when did
you have?
Samantha Miklos (31:36):
feedback.
Just recently this onlyhappened.
Yeah, so it's been the end offinancial year.
Judy Scott (31:50):
Yes, that's right.
It was the end of lastfinancial year, so it dropped
two and a half weeks before onejuly and we had to have it ready
on one july and it's you know,it's about a month now.
Yeah, so it's prettyastronomical.
So I'm sure clients wouldrespond, yes, how?
Yeah, well for us, thankfully,with the way that we had set up
our business, we hadn't actuallypulled every lever that we
could, so we just had to quicklymake, um, make two or three
changes.
Things we never oncharged toclients before we now have to
on-charge.
So we previously didn'ton-charge a mileage fee because
(32:13):
we were happy to absorb that andwe could absorb that before.
We can't absorb that now.
So that gets on-charge to theclient, and we also used to
absorb all of our preparationtime for seeing them.
We can't do that anymore.
So that all gets on-charge tothe them.
We can't do that anymore, sothat all gets on charge to the
client.
We never previously chargedcomponents of return travel.
We only charge return travel inreally isolated circumstances.
(32:33):
So we didn't charge that beforeand now we're on charging that,
like everywhere we possibly can, which it doesn't feel nice,
but to stay in business we haveto do this, and that is for your
clients, right?
Kate Coomber (32:45):
Yes, it's not even to stay in business.
We have to do this for yourclients, right?
Judy Scott (32:47):
yes, it's not even to stay in business for me, it's
to stay in business for thecommunity, exactly they will
have no services and there arealready numerous allied health
providers who are closing, andthere are others where I've seen
they've had to make peopleredundant, and even others where
I've seen they're negotiatingconversations with their staff
and lowering salaries, which isjust awful, wow and that's
(33:08):
already in such a short periodof time.
Kate Coomber (33:12):
And you mentioned there about physio rates
dropping.
What's happening with pay ratesacross the board?
If this is happening and peopleare having to ask staff to get
paid less what's actuallyhappening in?
The awards.
Judy Scott (33:22):
Well, the awards are actually going up, which I
don't understand it.
I don't, I don't Like.
Honestly, I think it's like thegovernment.
They just anyway they don'ttalk to each other.
I don't know.
It boggles my mind that onepart of the government is saying
you need to pay your staff moreand then the other part of it
is reducing our ability to getthe income that we need to be
(33:45):
able to do that.
Samantha Miklos (33:46):
Is that going to then lead to a move from
staff from private practice whowork in the NDIS wanting to then
go to government roles?
Yeah, definitely.
Is that what's going to happen?
We'll see a swing there.
Judy Scott (33:56):
Yeah, so we thankfully at MTC like because
you know my husband's anaccountant and all the things
like we are stable and, like Isaid, we've pivoted and made the
changes.
We've reassured our staff thatlike we are fine.
Samantha Miklos (34:08):
But some people just can't cope with it and
I've already had a couple ofpeople leave to go to government
jobs, which honestly, Icompletely get it, especially if
they've got friends in otherpractices who are being made
redundant or you know.
It's that fear, right, and thecost of living now is just so
crazy, that's right.
People want that stability.
Judy Scott (34:26):
That's right and, yeah, I really do appreciate it.
So we try and do everything wecan yeah, we absorb as much as
we can personally to make surethat we've got what we need to
pay our staff appropriately and,you know, provide for them in
all the other ways, all theother ways, but there's, there's
(34:46):
already, there's so many shiftsin the sector now, like, and
bigger companies are buying upsmaller providers as well, which
is, I know, some of thesebigger company owners, and I get
it because they're, they'reseeing a great opportunity.
Samantha Miklos (34:56):
Yeah, we can absorb those small businesses.
Judy Scott (34:59):
Yeah, yeah, and at least, then people still have
the opportunity to retain a joband also for the clients to
receive services.
But, because people are goingto start transitioning more to
government jobs or leaving thesector.
I've had people as well likeleave altogether.
Just I'm done.
Yeah, don't want to be atherapist anymore because the
stress is too much.
Yeah, we will see that thereare fewer therapists available.
(35:21):
We found just in the last monthour referral rate.
Through no changes in ourmarketing, our referrals have
increased by 25%.
And I would love that to be dueto our awesome reputation but
it's not.
Kate Coomber (35:34):
It's because other people are closing their doors
and not traveling.
Judy Scott (35:38):
I was speaking to one of my contacts who does
vehicle modifications and he wastelling me he used to have at
least two OTs come in a day todo with vehicle mods and he's
had one in the past monthbecause people aren't traveling
anymore.
So everyone's trying to convertto telehealth and remote ways
of working.
We made a decision as abusiness that we were going to
minimize, that we wanted ourtherapists to still be able to
(36:01):
go out face to face, because weknow that's the better way to
practice.
So, yep, we definitely made somechanges, but we're doing what
we can to still service theclients.
Samantha Miklos (36:12):
You talked about some of the challenges
there with award rates.
Is there other challenges thatAllied Health is facing right
now?
I mean, they're two big ones,but is there anything else?
Judy Scott (36:24):
In our particular world of NDIS, the really big
one is the frustration arounddealing with the agency itself.
So, as I mentioned, we do alllike as an OT, we do all the
trials and things forwheelchairs and write up reports
and consistently we find thatthey don't read our reports
properly.
They've even admitted itthemselves, like the previous
(36:45):
CEO admitted, that reports don'tget read, that we write and yet
if we don't write them in thiscopious amount of detail, they
undoubtedly will come back to usasking for more information.
So I think that's the biggestthing feeling like we have to
become report writers for thesake of compliance rather than
actually doing hands-on therapywith clients.
(37:06):
We would much rather save thatmoney from the plan for us.
Samantha Miklos (37:11):
Once we've got the wheelchair, let's go test it
out in all the environments andmake sure that you're really
comfortable.
And we've got it well set up,exactly right.
Are you comfortable?
Yes, all of that.
Judy Scott (37:18):
But we have to use so much of the funding Like I'm
not kidding, my most recentwheelchair report application
was over 30 pages and that's mejust using the NDIS template I
have to use.
Samantha Miklos (37:29):
Oh, wow yeah.
Kate Coomber (37:30):
And my.
Judy Scott (37:30):
HomeMods, one was over 40.
Kate Coomber (37:32):
Oh my goodness, With the advancements of AI, is
that going to help the rapportwriting?
And you know.
Samantha Miklos (37:40):
Possibly in some ways yeah.
Judy Scott (37:45):
We use AI for other things, like if I was creating a
visual schedule for a client.
There's cool ways you can useAI for that.
With the reports, it'sdifficult because we need to be
able to use our clinicalreasoning and justification, and
so AI can't really yet replacethat you know, like our ability
to see the person in theirenvironment doing their
occupation and explaining that.
I think eventually, eventually,like there is some assistance
(38:06):
coming for note writing, whichwill be awesome.
Um, as therapists, we stillhave a responsibility to make
sure those notes accuratelyrepresent the client.
But yeah, we haven't investedin it too heavily yet at mtc,
but looking into it at themoment.
Samantha Miklos (38:20):
Yeah, because at the end of the day, like that
ability to clinically reasonyou don't want that to be
replaced.
That's right, because thenwhere do we go?
Kate Coomber (38:27):
Yes, I don't think it could.
So what's the answer?
Samantha Miklos (38:34):
What are the opportunities?
What are the opportunities forthe industry?
What's the change that couldactually set this off in a
better direction?
Judy Scott (38:41):
I think if the government would meaningfully
engage with our peak bodies, soour OTA.
Samantha Miklos (38:46):
Are you part of OTA Australia?
Yeah, are you going to be thepresident one day?
Judy Scott (38:50):
You are, aren't you?
Maybe Are you on the council?
No, I'm not.
I've thought about it.
Samantha Miklos (38:56):
I feel like you should be, because are you
practicing clinically?
Judy Scott (39:00):
Yeah, I still do only with a few clients.
But, that's just because I'vegot a few clients I really love
and yeah, there's, you know, acouple of clients in particular.
Kate Coomber (39:07):
I'll never give up yeah, they'll have to pull me
away.
That must be great for the team, though to see that too, like
that probably really adds to theculture.
Judy Scott (39:14):
I hope so.
I get that feedback from theseniors and leads that they
think it's, yeah, reallymeaningful that I still practice
.
The main reason, though, why Istill practice is because I just
love it yeah.
I yeah, I can't turn that partof me off completely I think in
terms of the answer, yeah, thegovernment needs to engage
meaningfully with our peakbodies, because they made this
change with no consultation andjust the fact alone that we had
(39:37):
two and a half weeks toimplement it, it just seems so
cruel to me.
Samantha Miklos (39:40):
Yeah, it's a huge change for such a short
period with no consultation.
Judy Scott (39:44):
Absolutely massive.
Samantha Miklos (39:45):
Especially because, as a body, you might
have had some really great ideasin terms of other ways that
they could equally get the costsavings and efficiency.
Judy Scott (39:54):
If they would streamline the report templates
we have to use for differentpieces of applications to the
NDIS.
So much of that could bestreamlined If we could be
talking to a real therapist.
There are therapists who workin the NDIS but none of that
could be streamlined If we couldbe talking to a real therapist.
There are therapists who workin the NDIS but none of them
have that in their title.
It's very hidden.
So you know you never know.
You could be dealing with aplanner who used to do sales or
(40:15):
you might be dealing with atherapist.
You would never know If weactually had a contact in the
NDIS who was a therapist, whowas you, who was engaging with
us meaningfully about ourapplications and getting some
more consistency.
I think back to the oldapplications we did, back in
medical aid subsidy scheme,which was the Queensland
government one.
Samantha Miklos (40:32):
Yeah, I remember that they're a lot
shorter too from what you justdescribed.
Judy Scott (40:36):
They were so much shorter.
And it's just so funny nowlooking back, because I used to
get frustrated with dealing withmaths and now it's like, oh my
gosh, bring back maths,frustrated with dealing with
maths and now it's like oh mygosh, bring back the maths.
Kate Coomber (40:48):
Isn't that funny that I would have just assumed
that there were therapistssitting in that space and like,
yeah, actually dedicatedtherapists as consultation, like
I just assumed that would be athing you would think so if I
was setting up the NDIS.
Judy Scott (40:59):
I would set it up like that.
But it's not set up like that.
It's set up as an insurancescheme which, ironically, most
of our clients over 60% of themhave intellectual disabilities
or autism.
These are not people that aregoing to get better.
So the whole premise of thescheme is set up based on
somebody, perhaps, who has aphysical disability, who might
(41:20):
end up independent and notneeding support, with the right
equipment in place or whateverit's rehabilitating.
Kate Coomber (41:24):
Yes.
Judy Scott (41:25):
That is not the bulk of the clients who access the
scheme is not that type, yeah,so I think they made some
fundamental errors when they setit up originally.
It's tricky.
Kate Coomber (41:38):
So today we're going to be donating to a
charity of your choice, yep,where can we be doing that for?
Judy Scott (41:45):
That is so generous of you.
Thank you, it's a really kindthing to do.
Samantha Miklos (41:49):
It's the least it's just and also too like it's
an opportunity to shine a lightright.
Judy Scott (41:53):
Some of the charities are charities we've
never heard of you know.
Samantha Miklos (41:56):
So just to give them a moment.
Judy Scott (41:57):
Well, I'm curious as to if you've heard of the one
I've in the Darwin Children'sChristmas Party.
Samantha Miklos (42:03):
No, I love this so this is amazing.
Judy Scott (42:07):
This is obviously a charity based in Darwin.
Darwin for me, it's so close tomy heart because it's like an
accidental baby that you didn'tknow you were going to get and
then,
Kate Coomber (42:17):
you just love it.
That's like you For me.
I was going to say somethingelse, yeah.
Judy Scott (42:25):
So I really love Darwin and the work that our
team do over there is phenomenal.
Anyway, last year theyvolunteered because each of our
clinics we had them do adifferent charity as part of our
Christmas thing Christmasgiving and they volunteered at
the Darwin Children's ChristmasParty.
And what it is?
It's a gathering for childrenaged zero to 12 who have complex
disabilities or some kind ofcomplex social background, and
(42:47):
you know they have Santa comeand give presents and look after
them and treat them to abeautiful Christmas you know
children that otherwise?
might not have had such a thing.
Samantha Miklos (42:55):
That is incredible.
I'd love to support you.
It's great to learn about.
Oh yeah, we would absolutelylove that.
Thank you.
We've done a few over the years, just internally here.
There was one in Brisbane, theVariety Children's Christmas
Party, similar thing, and it wasjust so special being able to
give back and, you know, createChristmas you know, for families
Absolutely Well.
Judy Scott (43:14):
I was very proud of our Darwin crew last year when
they, yeah, went and volunteeredthere.
That's a great choice.
Samantha Miklos (43:18):
I love it, judy , thank you.
I have just so enjoyed this,and you know, I think learning
like we've learned about what anOT is.
Maybe I should go back, becauseit sounds like it's a little
bit better, maybe.
Maybe I tapped out too soon.
I don't know NDIS too, likethere's just so much unknown.
So even just to understand thata little bit better and and
(43:38):
understand the challenges youknow for the allied health
workforce, so I really hope thatthere's some change.
I dare say it'll take a littlewhile for you all.
But like, get on OT Australia,like you're such an advocate and
how lucky your team are to haveyou as founder for that
business.
It's just, it's beautiful tohear about how values led my
therapy crew is.
Judy Scott (43:58):
Amazing.
Thank you, it's been such anhonour being here.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for having me.
Kate Coomber (44:07):
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the
land of which we meet who, forcenturies, have shared ancient
methods of healing and cared fortheir communities.
We pay our respects to elders,past and present.
There's been big changes to the NDIS recently
, but what is the real impactthat these changes are having on
allied health businesses acrossAustralia?
Judy Scott (00:07):
They've made cuts to what allied health providers
can charge and it only droppedtwo and a half weeks before the
changes had to be implemented.
So as business owners likeevery single allied health
business owner has been frantic,it's pretty astronomical.
Kate Coomber (00:22):
To hear more of these important conversations,
don't forget to hit the followor subscribe button.
And don't forget to follow usover on Instagram for all the
behind the scenes fun.
Samantha Miklos (00:37):
Okay, so today we are joined by Judy Scott,
occupational therapist andfounder of my Therapy Crew and a
strong voice for allied healthprofessionals.
Welcome Judy to.
It Takes Heart.
Thank you.
Judy Scott (00:48):
I'm so glad to be here with you both.
Samantha Miklos (00:50):
And I'm kind of excited to have you here
because you're our first OT,which is strange, actually.
Kate Coomber (00:55):
Yes, Apologies to OT, because that's an oversight.
I know right, we are the bestprofessions.
Judy Scott (00:59):
I can't believe you've left us till now.
Samantha Miklos (01:02):
And the fact that we've, in the first five
minutes, we're connected to somany OTs as well, and we've
worked with you in the past aswell.
So there's all theseconnections with OT.
Kate Coomber (01:12):
But you trained as an OT.
I did not.
So for me and for everyone else, what is an OT?
What is occupational therapy?
Samantha Miklos (01:20):
Because don't you think that is like no one
ever knows?
Judy Scott (01:23):
what they do.
Samantha Miklos (01:24):
Yes and I remember starting the degree and
thinking I still don't get it.
Judy Scott (01:27):
Yeah, 100%.
Do you know the start of ourdegree?
We actually spend the first sixmonths learning to define
occupational therapy, really.
Samantha Miklos (01:34):
I must have missed those lessons.
Kate Coomber (01:36):
I was like you could have been helpful.
Samantha Miklos (01:38):
I should have stayed on a bit longer, yeah
well, I promise you did it.
Judy Scott (01:41):
Yeah, yeah, I promise you did it.
And even like our new grads,I've been asking them and they
still do that the first sixmonths of the degree, because
we're still so poorly understood.
I think if I was naming theprofession even though this is
super wordy I would call usactivities of daily living
therapists, because the way weuse the word occupation is that
it's every activity of dailyliving that you might do and
(02:03):
we're looking to facilitateindependence and quality of life
.
So we want to make sure thatwhatever you want to do whether
it's, you know, eating a meal,sitting in a chair, going out,
driving, whatever it is that youcan do that as independently
and safely as possible.
And we look at like sometimeswe use, you know, alternative
strategies or equipment items todo that.
Sometimes we change theenvironment.
(02:25):
So there's heaps and heaps ofways that we facilitate
independence.
So I guess that's across lotsof settings I was just gonna say
do you think?
Kate Coomber (02:32):
you know, I guess I probably first learned about
ot was having children and, yes,schools mentioned at once.
Yeah, how does that work, youknow?
So it, yeah, there must be lotsof settings.
Judy Scott (02:41):
There's heaps of places ots can work.
It's so, so broad, which ispart of what I think makes the
profession great, because youcan move like you might start in
paediatrics with kids and notreally enjoy that, and so you
could go into a work rehab typerole, which is completely
different.
They even have OTs working outwith people in the mines, like
it's everywhere.
Heaps and heaps of differentsectors, so pa, pediatrics, aged
(03:04):
care, hospitals, just it'severywhere.
Most people, though, won't needan OT unless they've got
something significant going on,except for, say, kids doing
handwriting, which is theclassic where that's like the
gateway drug to OT.
Samantha Miklos (03:17):
You've got a kid who needs help with
handwriting.
I love it.
Why did you want to become anoccupational therapist?
You're so passionate about it?
Yes, I love it.
Why did you want to become anoccupational therapist?
You're so passionate about it?
Yes, I love it.
Did you go?
Judy Scott (03:26):
straight into OT.
I'm really lucky because, yeah,I did figure it out when I was
in high school that that's theone that I would do and, weirdly
, one of my friend's siblingswas studying OT.
So that's sort of how I heardabout it.
But before that, reallyinterestingly.
So I knew I wanted to work inhealthcare but I just I didn't
(03:49):
know which way I was going to go.
Kate Coomber (03:49):
I looked at social work was kind of talked out of
that.
Looked at psychology talked outof that wasn't fit enough.
Did you have influence aroundyou?
Who worked in health care thatmade you want to work in health
care?
Judy Scott (03:55):
Do you know, really unusually, no one, not really in
my immediate family.
My auntie was a nurse and mycousin, who was older than me,
was doing social work, but thatwas kind of it.
So I didn't really understandthis draw inside of me to go
into health care.
I sort of worked that out laterin life as to how I landed
there.
Yeah, naturally nurturing yeah.
Kate Coomber (04:18):
I think yeah what was it?
Samantha Miklos (04:20):
what was?
That, that happened to you.
Judy Scott (04:22):
Like I am naturally nurturing.
But the origin story for mereally is that I grew up with a
mum who was extremely unwell.
So my mum had chronic migraines, and this isn't just where you
feel a bit sick, like shecouldn't work, she was in bed
half the week.
Our whole family structure wasaround my mum and, like mum's
migraines, I wouldn't know untilI got home from school whether
(04:46):
or not she was having a good dayor a bad day, and so as I would
walk in the driveway I couldtell that the blinds were down,
so I knew mum's in bed, blindsup, mum's up.
But I only worked this out likethrough years of therapy.
It's so funny because I love mymum.
I was, so you know, defensiveand protective of her and I
never really wanted toacknowledge that her being sick
had had an impact on my life.
(05:07):
And so it was, as I was gettingcounselling I'm a big advocate
for counselling too Like go getsome therapy get some help, but
it was also your standard right.
Kate Coomber (05:15):
It was your normal , so you didn't know any
different.
Judy Scott (05:17):
That's exactly right To know that it wasn't typical,
definitely Like when you growup.
Whatever environment we grow upin, it's normal for us.
Yeah, but yeah, that was goingthrough counselling helped me
figure out.
Oh, it's actually because I wascaring for my mum.
I was a young carer, yeah, andthat's how I ended up being a
healthcare professional yeah.
Samantha Miklos (05:35):
is there anything now, years on being in
OT, that that you think is justmisunderstood?
Or you think I wish people knewthat, I wish I'd known that at
uni about being in OT?
Judy Scott (05:47):
How, just how incredible it is like the
difference that you can make inpeople's lives.
Like I think when you go intouni you sort of have this a bit
of hope, like oh yep, I'm goingto be a health professional, I'm
going to be doing somethingmeaningful.
But actually, particularly inthe type of field I'm in, I'm in
(06:11):
complex disability you're I getto journey with people through
years, like I get to know theirfamilies, like I don't know
their friends, uncle, like justso many people in their lives,
and so it's like you actuallybecome a part of their own,
their fabric, yeah, of who theyare, um, and that's.
It's such a privilege, yeahthat's.
I didn't really understand justhow significant that was the
relationships.
Kate Coomber (06:28):
How did you get to there then?
If you didn't understand that,that would be the scope, why?
Did you specialise In complexdisability, in complex
disability, yeah.
Judy Scott (06:35):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's an interesting onetoo, because again at uni I
didn't know what part of OT Iwanted to do.
I didn't think I wanted to dodisability, but you have to do
placements.
So back when I went through wedid four seven-week placements.
It's a bit different now, oh isit different now?
Yeah, they only do two 10-weekplacements.
Kate Coomber (06:53):
Oh wow, yeah, it's really different.
There were so many.
It minimises the exposure rightof different settings.
Judy Scott (07:09):
And that was also hard too, because there were so
many things you could do, butyou were limited to just have a
little slice of some of thoseexperiences, and everyone wanted
paediatrics.
Yes, I know it's so strange.
I think, though, that's becauseso we, sam and I, went through
the same uni, just differenttimes.
I think that's because our headof OT at the time was a
paediatric yeah, person, that'swhy yeah, because it's changed
since then a little bit yeahyeah, but anyway we did four
placements.
I did not list disability likeon my placement options at all,
didn't want to do it um, hadmore of an interest in, you know
(07:31):
, pediatrics and I was likepediatrics occupational rehab.
Samantha Miklos (07:35):
Yeah, um, I did oncology really, yeah, I really
enjoy.
I actually really loved workingin that when I did did go out
and work, it was a combined roleof palliative care and
pediatrics.
That is so fascinating.
Yeah, I loved the two ends.
I don't know?
Judy Scott (07:50):
Yeah, interesting, whereas I did two hospital
placements out of my four and Ihated them, did you, yep?
Samantha Miklos (07:57):
Isn't that weird.
Kate Coomber (07:58):
What did you hate?
Judy Scott (07:58):
about them.
To be honest, I had a really Ihad a bit of a tricky
relationship with my firstsupervisor and it's amazing how
much they call it clinicaleducator now.
Amazing how much your clinicaleducator impacts your experience
.
Samantha Miklos (08:12):
That's very true because my first one was
impalliative and she was soamazing and I just I idolised
her, yeah.
Judy Scott (08:19):
Yeah Well, similarly then, my disability placement,
which is a placement I didn'twant.
I adored my clinical educator.
Samantha Miklos (08:26):
So you end up sorry, we keep jumping.
You ended up getting there.
Judy Scott (08:29):
Yeah, I got a placement there and then loved
my clinical educator and thenfell in love with the type of
work where you actually get toknow whole families and
stakeholder groups and so, yeah,I got a job from uni in DSQ
Disability Services Queenslandand I was there for 15 years
until I got made redundant.
So, yeah, it was amazing, Iloved it.
Samantha Miklos (08:49):
So let's talk about my Therapy Crew, is that?
Kate Coomber (08:51):
how my Therapy Crew started.
Because you started just athome in the garage.
Samantha Miklos (08:57):
Yeah, I loved when I heard that.
Judy Scott (09:00):
Yeah, isn't that how every small business?
Samantha Miklos (09:01):
starts.
Yeah, I was in a front room.
Kate Coomber (09:04):
However, yes, but you weren't seeing patients
coming in.
Samantha Miklos (09:09):
No, I did have that thought just then.
I was like, oh, they're goingto the garage.
Kate Coomber (09:12):
It was so insane.
Judy Scott (09:13):
Look, and when I say that our garage, we got it
converted beautifully.
My friend happens to be abuilder and she did a beautiful
job converting our garage into ahome office for me, so it
looked nice.
But yeah, it was the garage.
Samantha Miklos (09:26):
It's a garage, yeah, which is pretty crazy.
Judy Scott (09:29):
So had you been made redundant.
Samantha Miklos (09:30):
Yes, or had this always been ruminating for
you?
Judy Scott (09:33):
No, okay.
So I loved my work inDisability Services Queensland
and then we all had warning forabout three years we were going
to be made redundant.
That's a really weird way towork like to have a three-year
long date.
Samantha Miklos (09:46):
It's like I'm going to break up with you soon,
but not yet.
But just wait, just hang inthere.
Judy Scott (09:50):
It was very strange but it was because I loved my
job.
It was worth it to me to stickit out to the end Like people
kind of peeled off as we went,but for me I stayed, you know,
until the redundancies came outand redundancies came out and
then the only way at that timebecause OT wasn't the world that
it is now where now, there'sOTs are just in high demand and
can go get a job anywhere.
That didn't exist yet then, andthe only way that I knew that I
(10:14):
could keep working with theclient group that I loved was to
work for myself, and we didn'thave anything like non-competes
because the government waswinding up, so there was no
nothing saying you can't workwith your clients, because there
was nowhere for these clientsto go, and I was well known in
the industry in SouthsideBrisbane because that's where
I'd been working for 15 years.
Yeah, so I had heaps of peoplewho were like my clients, who
(10:37):
were looking for a service, andso, yeah, it got made redundant,
went on a week long cruise withmy family and then came back
and it was amazing.
I came back to so many emailsand messages and requests, and
requests.
Kate Coomber (10:48):
And where are you?
Yeah, for work.
Judy Scott (10:49):
So, yeah, it was a really crazy time.
So, yeah, I worked for myself.
I mostly I tried to go out toclients because of the fact that
it was at my home and did youhave kids running around the
house?
Yes, like what phase of life wasthis, oh my goodness, Because
it's a few years ago now.
So my kids were.
My oldest is now 19.
But she, when we started thebusiness she was 14.
(11:09):
But I was working for myselfbefore that, so you know they
were between 8 and 13,.
My kids I've got four of them.
Kate Coomber (11:17):
Yeah, Sorry, that was a reaction, so busy I've got
that reaction.
Samantha Miklos (11:23):
No, beautiful, are you okay?
Oh, my God, I feel like three.
I'm so outnumbered, I'm likeforever.
Like if everyone's got shoes on, it's a win.
Yes, oh yeah, yeah.
Judy Scott (11:32):
It's absolutely a win when everyone's got shoes on
.
But yeah, it was crazy.
So I would have clients comeinto the home.
I'd use my rumpus room as atherapy space.
It was crazy, and then, as thebusiness grew because we
actually started in the house,so I had other therapists coming
into the house.
How soon did you bring yourfirst therapist in?
I worked for myself on my ownfor A year and doing some
(11:55):
subcontracting as well, yeah,but yeah, working on my own for
a year.
And then my husband is anaccountant and he specialises in
small business accounting.
That's convenient.
Samantha Miklos (12:05):
Yeah, Like mine , he does IT and systems.
I was going to say it's sosimilar that you're the opposite
.
You can do all the things Ican't do.
Judy Scott (12:11):
Yeah, he is phenomenal, yeah.
And so he kept saying to melike I think you can, I think we
can build a business from this.
Yeah, you should reallyseriously consider employing
someone.
And I was terrified of the idea.
I still remember the firstphone call with someone who
actually was an allied healthassistant so not an OT for the
first employee and phoning tohim and talking about things
like salary, where I just had noclue.
Samantha Miklos (12:32):
I had to do that with you.
I was like I don't even have adesk for you.
Judy Scott (12:37):
I don't know, I don't know what to do with you.
He's like I'll come.
Samantha Miklos (12:39):
I was like I don't know what to do.
Judy Scott (12:40):
Yeah, well, it's exactly like that.
So I just set up a desk for himin my and you're a clinician.
Kate Coomber (12:44):
Yeah.
Judy Scott (12:52):
So you're passionate about the clients and the
caseloads?
Yeah yeah, and had his deskthere and then would go out and
see clients, which I'd write upthe allied health assistant plan
for him and he'd go see themand then I did a post.
It's so funny.
My sister used to tease mebecause we used to be called my
OT Crew and so, yeah, that'swhere we started from.
And I had a page, my OT Crew,and she would just joke with me.
(13:13):
She's like what your crew ofone person Back when it was me.
Samantha Miklos (13:15):
Oh, all right, it's a vision.
Judy Scott (13:17):
Exactly.
Kate Coomber (13:18):
I can choose a crew.
Judy Scott (13:21):
Yeah, and I did a post and then one of my uni
friends reached out to me andshe's like, hey, I want to know
a bit about private practice.
And I was like thinking shewanted me to tell her how to run
a private practice.
And she's like, no, I want towork for you.
And I could not, could notbelieve it in my wildest dreams
that someone from my cohortwould trust me, trust me enough
to.
They left a government job.
Kate Coomber (13:42):
Yeah, to come and work for them.
Yeah, and let me employ them.
Judy Scott (13:45):
But then that started a whole new journey of
figuring out how to do contracts.
And, oh my goodness, what doyou?
Kate Coomber (13:49):
think it was that people saw in you to go yeah, I
want to be a part of that.
Judy Scott (13:54):
I'm naturally really passionate about the work that
we do, like I, I just love theclients so much, you know, and I
think they deserve qualityservices, so it's probably just
that.
Kate Coomber (14:07):
Is it word of mouth?
Or were you very heavily onsocials Like, how were you
getting that message out?
How was everyone finding you it?
Judy Scott (14:12):
was the whole.
First three years of thebusiness was just word of mouth.
So my first year working on myown and three years of the
business, so four yearsaltogether.
We didn't pay a cent formarketing or anything.
Then we got too big to kind ofkeep carrying Like by then, you
know, I can't even remember weprobably had 30 therapists at
(14:33):
that point because we've had ourbiggest growth in the last two
years.
But yeah, then we had to start,you know, spending money on the
Google.
Samantha Miklos (14:38):
Gods, yeah, seo all of that sort of stuff, you
run on the smell of an oily ragto start with, and then it gets
to the point where you're like,right, we actually have to
really lean in now and do somemore.
So today is it like 80 staff orsomething now Yep, Yep we've
got just so many.
Kate Coomber (14:55):
Over how many clinics?
Yeah, how many clinics.
And where are you?
Are you still in the garage,are you still at home or have
you now got a house?
Samantha Miklos (15:02):
running around.
Can you imagine if I had 80people in my house?
Judy Scott (15:07):
I'm like should we notify the council?
Yeah, so we have 80 staff,we're just over and we've got
five clinics now, which ispretty amazing All in Brisbane.
No, so we've got two to threeare in Brisbane, because we've
got two Brisbane Southside andthen our Brisbane North is all
the way up at North Lakes, soit's kind of that gateway like
up to Caboolture as well.
And then we have the SunshineCoast and we actually have a
(15:28):
clinic in Darwin.
Wow, yeah, I've got a few OTsover there.
Samantha Miklos (15:32):
How did that happen?
I was just about to say how didyou get to Darwin?
Judy Scott (15:36):
Yeah, so I'm with us with starting the business with
having.
So we moved from the house to abig clinic, which was wild in
itself.
Samantha Miklos (15:44):
Yeah, that would have been a really special
moment.
Judy Scott (15:46):
So crazy.
So we were up to 14 staff whenwe were in the house, which is
crazy.
Just FYI, I didn't know thatthat was against Brisbane City
Council regulations.
Samantha Miklos (15:56):
I found that out after Just about to say that
yeah, I found that out aftershe stood out to say that, yeah,
I didn't know I was up in thekitchen.
Judy Scott (16:02):
Yeah, details, details, do you?
Samantha Miklos (16:05):
know what, though?
That's interesting, though,because when you do start a
business, you've been aclinician and then all of a
sudden, you're running a privatepractice, that's right, it's a
baptism of fire and yousometimes fake it until you make
it.
Judy Scott (16:16):
Yep.
No one told me I had no idea.
Samantha Miklos (16:19):
And then, thankfully, surely the
neighbours were like what isgoing on?
And then, if you're in and outseeing clients like there's
watching cars yeah well, therewere cars everywhere, kids.
Kate Coomber (16:25):
They're just like you know add a few friends, a
couple of nannies.
They're just used to a lot ofpeople.
Judy Scott (16:42):
Yeah, our neighbours did work and everything, but we
did actually it's so ironic, wemoved into the clinic the first
clinic and we got a letter inthe mail that week from Brisbane
City Council saying are yourunning a business from home?
No, I am not.
Yeah, so big clinic.
And then a couple of years agowe had outgrown that and didn't
know kind of what to do.
We're considering how do we dothis because, as the business
owner, when I'm so invested andI love you know, love what we do
so much I didn't know kind ofwhat to do.
We're considering how do we dothis Because, as the business
owner, when I'm so invested andI love you know, love what we do
(17:02):
so much, I didn't know if ourbeautiful culture would
translate over a second site.
So we tested it out with a smallsite to start with to see how
that went.
And then, only a few monthslater, interestingly, I had a
phone call from my mentor andshe was just in a position where
she needed to stop running herown business and she had about
10 clinics and she asked me ifwe'd consider buying three of
(17:25):
them and what we decided to do.
Like sometimes people do thatand they keep the original
branding.
We didn't want to do that.
We wanted to fully merge theminto my Therapy Crew to make
them our brand.
To make them our brand Now,like those sites.
That was only a year ago now,and those sites have grown so
much that there's only you knowthere's a few original staff
members.
Most of them have stayed, whichhas been awesome, but, yeah,
(17:47):
they've all been indoctrinatedinto the MTC way.
Samantha Miklos (17:50):
Yeah, Talk to us about that.
Like the way, like cultureseems to be really important to
you.
That's always been somethingwe've talked about is like
different sites, and how do youkeep that?
What is your culture?
Judy Scott (17:59):
and what do you do?
Samantha Miklos (18:00):
to foster that.
Judy Scott (18:02):
Yeah, so we have really strong vision and values.
Anyone who works for us couldquote them for you and explain
how we live them out.
And so our four values arealways learning, dependable,
contributing and nurturing whatwe tried to do, because Matt and
and I that's my husband um, welove the business so much.
As I've said, they, those fourvalues, are really us on paper,
(18:24):
like our kids could tell youthat they're kind of the
blending of our four styles, ourstyles together, into those
four values.
Um, and what I found is that ifyou live out rituals and
routines that are connected tothe values across all of the
sites, then that's how youtranslate that culture yeah yeah
(18:44):
.
So all of the sites like they'vegot a little bit of their own
flavor, but they would all beable to testify to those values.
So we have in-houseprofessional development in
every single site once afortnight.
You know things like that.
We have one of our ways ofnurturing is we put on a weekly
lunch for all of our staff.
So every single site once afortnight.
You know things like that.
We have one of our ways ofnurturing is we put on a weekly
lunch for all of our staff.
So every single site.
That means I'm catering 80lunches a week.
Kate Coomber (19:05):
Wow, I imagine that's pretty rare in health for
someone to have that sort ofenvironment, not even health
like other businesses, right, orany business really.
It's all that stuff that peoplego.
Judy Scott (19:14):
Oh, it's too costly or what's the value in it, but
it's those memorable moments.
That's it.
Well, it's because for me and Iknow this sounds so altruistic,
but it's just part of who I amand who my husband is Like we
really want to create abeautiful place for people to
work, and that's why we investin this way.
Yeah, I want their memories oftheir time with us to be that we
(19:36):
made a positive impact on them,that my therapy crew made a
positive impact on them.
Yeah, that's what we're goingfor.
Samantha Miklos (19:42):
Yeah, so learning, I was thinking that,
and lunches, what else?
What are some other greatthings you do?
Judy Scott (19:47):
Yeah, we have very consistent supervision.
So in occupational therapy,clinical supervision is really
important and we haveexperienced therapists.
Samantha Miklos (19:56):
Sorry, we're not just OTs now, I was just
going to say yeah, I was justgoing to say Tell me, I know
there are uni students nowcoming out and doing placement
with you.
Kate Coomber (20:04):
Yeah, I mean like that's full circle.
Hey, it's not 80 OTs.
Judy Scott (20:08):
No, it's not Sorry, I neglected kind of that step
along the way.
Samantha Miklos (20:10):
That's all right.
Judy Scott (20:11):
Talk us through.
We have physios and speechpathologists, we have a music
therapist, we have behavioursupport practitioners and we
have allied health assistantsand then a really big
administrative team.
So all of those conversationsas well at the start were so big
.
The first physio that I hiredlike he was somebody that I knew
(20:33):
.
I didn't know him well, but Iknew him enough to have a
conversation, because you've gotto be really brave to be the
first of your discipline to comein when it's you know, so
heavily OT based.
But yeah, he's done a phenomenaljob of growing our physio
department.
And then same with the firstspeechy.
She was somebody I worked withback at DSQ and she was brave
enough to come over and be myfirst speechy and pave the way
(20:54):
our music therapist actually dida placement with us, even
though we didn't have any musictherapists.
Because that's part of howtheir degree works they have to
do a placement in a place whichdoesn't have music therapy,
right.
Kate Coomber (21:06):
And to try and create something and have a
thought of where could I fit?
Yeah, absolutely and add value.
Yeah.
Judy Scott (21:11):
So then over time we've now run new graduate
programs three years in a row,because I think we've got such
great clinicians and.
I want to keep feeding into ourprofessions.
Samantha Miklos (21:23):
Yeah, and that graduate year is so key, like if
they've got great mentors ifthey're with a great team like
that's what keeps them reallysticky to the profession.
Whereas I think, if it's not agreat first year, that's where
they're gone.
Kate Coomber (21:36):
Yeah, and are people still choosing OT, like
in the same levels that theywere?
Is it growing?
Is it declining?
Where is the you know peoplegoing into?
Judy Scott (21:44):
it.
It is so much bigger than itwas when I studied.
Yeah, wow, Like when Sam and Iwent through.
It's like we had 90 people.
Samantha Miklos (21:50):
I was just going to say we had 90 people in
the year.
I went through Really.
Judy Scott (21:54):
Now there's like 10 unis that do it in southeast
Queensland or something likethat, whereas before it was on
the UQ.
Samantha Miklos (21:59):
Why is there such a?
You said earlier like there'ssuch high demand for OTs.
Now why?
What's different?
Judy Scott (22:05):
Yeah.
So I think it's because, as OThas evolved and people can see,
because it's so broad and youcan see the real-life
application of OT in all thesedifferent spaces, it's just it's
naturally been in demand.
One thing that's definitelydriven it is the if you've heard
of the NDIS- yeah.
Yeah, that's been a big driverin OT because a lot of the NDIS
(22:29):
decisions are based offoccupational therapy reports.
Kate Coomber (22:31):
Right, so talk us through NDIS.
What is it?
How does it interact, I guess,with you and your business?
Judy Scott (22:38):
Yeah, so what's the role?
Kate Coomber (22:40):
of the NDIA.
Samantha Miklos (22:42):
What does it stand for All the people?
My mum's listening right nowlike educator.
Judy Scott (22:46):
Yeah, I would love to.
So we always talk about theNDIS, but there's two different
things.
So there's the NDIA NationalDisability Insurance Agency, and
that's actually the publicservice department.
Those are like the governmentworkers.
And then we commonly just saythe NDIS National Disability
Insurance Scheme, but the schemeis actually the dollars.
It's the money behind it.
(23:07):
But everyone's just so used tojust saying the NDIS.
Really, it's the NDIA that weinteract with, if that makes
sense.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, so what they did backwhen I was in Disability
Services Queensland, all of theservices for people with
disability were run by thestates, so every state had a
different system.
If you worked for theequivalent of DSQ down in New
(23:27):
South Wales, you actually tendedto work more with people with
physical disabilities.
In DSQ in Queensland, we workedwith people with intellectual
disabilities and you had to havean IQ rating of less than 65 to
be eligible, so there wereheaps of barriers for people
getting services.
So what they decided to do andthey wanted to make it more
uniform across all of thecountry is they reabsorbed all
(23:48):
of the state funding back intofederal, which is why we were
all made redundant, because theyhad to pull that money back and
then they popped it intofederal and then spit out this
scheme that is supposed tosupport people with disabilities
any kind of disability allaround the country, Right?
Kate Coomber (24:03):
So was that a good thing at the time.
Yeah, or how was it?
Yeah, was it received?
Well, problematic Such acomplicated question.
Samantha Miklos (24:12):
I was just about to say that from your face
.
Judy Scott (24:14):
I was like yeah, it's so complicated because, yes
, in principle, yes, it's a goodthing, absolutely.
So many more people areeligible for services now.
We in the state government itwas so difficult because there
were people that would like onlyjust miss out on being eligible
for a service for us and ifthere was no non-government
option for them, they justwouldn't get a service, like
(24:35):
they wouldn't receive supportand help.
Kate Coomber (24:38):
And so is this about people being able to pay
for the service or evenaccessing, if they chose to fund
it themselves.
Was that an option, or this iseven to be acknowledged in the
service?
Judy Scott (24:50):
So anyone can pay for services like our business,
for instance.
We would see anyone.
But even back then, back thenthere weren't really private
services, so like there mighthave been small therapy
companies or people would go seephysios like physios, have
always seen mainstream provided,mainstream services.
But you know it would just belike a mum who wanted to get
(25:11):
assistance for handwriting fortheir kid yeah, it wasn't,
wasn't the way it is now.
Um, really, the ndis providesfunding for people to receive
services and they had their ownplans.
So where before in stategovernment it was block funded.
So I was attached to a house.
I was the OT for a region,right?
(25:31):
Yeah depending on what team Iwas in.
Yeah, so, if you were in thisregion.
You had no choice about thematter.
Judy Scott was your OT.
Yeah, you know Whereas nowpeople get their own funding
plans and they choose where theyget their services from.
Right, okay.
Samantha Miklos (25:45):
So has that lifted the quality of services
too, because people are optingto choose their provider?
Yeah, I think so.
Judy Scott (25:53):
It definitely relies on the provider having strong
ethics, which I'm proud to saywe do.
We want to provide a goodservice.
We want quality clinicians,which is why we invest so much
in professional development andsupervision.
Because I want to be confident,it's one of my career
objectives to provide qualityclinical services to people with
a disability.
So I want to be sure that thetherapists I'm sending out who
(26:15):
are representing MTC are doing agreat job.
But, yeah, it's just totallytransformed the system.
So, even more than just makingus provide better services, it's
just completely different,because now you have all of
these private practices allaround the place.
Samantha Miklos (26:31):
Yeah, so there's a lot of private
practice that has evolved andpopped up in recent years.
Judy Scott (26:38):
Like in the five years we've been in business and
you know the seven years sinceNDIS came in astronomical growth
.
Like so some providers were outthere before, but because the
services like back when Istarted working on my own, even
I had so many referrals, like Iwas just working all the time
because I was the person takingthe phone call from somebody and
(26:59):
and I love people withdisabilities, so I couldn't say
no, so I just would work, youknow, endless hours because I
wanted to fulfill this need.
So it's just been astronomical.
And then, with the way the NDISworks in, they brought in these
things called functionalcapacity assessments which OTs
write, and then they kind ofit's like they legislated it
like you have to have a currentFCA to be able to you know if
(27:22):
you need a change in housing inthe NDIS.
Samantha Miklos (27:25):
So there's all of these, all this work yeah,
just heaps and heaps of work butthen has there been some
changes though to the NDISrecently?
Judy Scott (27:33):
yes, what are those changes?
Samantha Miklos (27:35):
and what do?
Judy Scott (27:35):
they mean Was it broken or?
Well, I think what people see,and it's fair is that the NDIS
it does cost the Australiantaxpayer a lot of money, you
know, and I appreciate that.
So they decided to try andreduce the cost to the taxpayer.
But the focus that they'vetaken is they've actually
(27:56):
they've made cuts to what alliedhealth providers can charge.
This has a massive impact onthe allied health industry.
So what they did is, they said,for travel, when you're
travelling to a client, you cannow only charge half your normal
rate In our type of work.
When you're working with peoplewith complex disabilities, we
have to travel to their homes.
(28:17):
Yes, we have five clinics, ourclinics are beautiful, we have
some clients who can come in,but for many, many clients,
that's just not the way they canreceive services.
Kate Coomber (28:26):
And what do you think is the idea behind that?
It's a very specific cut, isn'tit?
Of travel?
Yeah, Is it just an idea tohelp with funding?
Judy Scott (28:35):
Honestly, what I have heard is it's like somebody
just threw that around as anidea in the room, it almost
feels like the reverse is neededbecause they can't access
Absolutely.
Yeah, and in the NDIS all oftheir online stuff that you can
research yourself they actuallyacknowledge that therapy in the
natural environment is best forpeople.
So it's ironic because they saythis in one way, but then they
(28:59):
tell us yeah, you can't if youtravel to people's houses,
you're only going to be able tocharge half the rate, which, for
a business, is completelyunsustainable.
It's had a massive impact onbusinesses.
I think they just wanted tosqueeze allied health because by
nature and this is me speakingas an OT by nature we're caring
people and they're like they'rejust going to keep going, no
matter how hard we make this.
(29:20):
they will keep going because welove the clients, rather than
finding other ways that theycould have addressed issues in
the scheme.
They also most insultingly,they lowered some rates.
So they lowered the charge-outrate for a physiotherapist by
$10 an hour and I just thinkanyone with any kind of
understanding of business wouldknow this is going to have a
(29:40):
huge impact on all of theseproviders.
Kate Coomber (29:42):
yeah, are they?
Are they not seeing it as avaluable you know?
Is it a nice to have serviceversus a need to have you know?
Judy Scott (29:52):
is it?
Yeah, I can't make sense of itbecause in within the way the
NDIS set up, they're reliant onwork from the allied health
professionals.
We're the only part of thescheme that actually focuses
properly on capacity building,so trying to increase a person's
independence, and they'rereliant on us, like we're the
(30:13):
ones who write all the reportsto get the person wheelchairs or
whatever it is they need.
You have to do all of thosetrials in home or in the
community.
You just simply can't do it inthe clinic.
You can't mimic, you can'tassess it properly.
If I just did it in the clinic,I kid you not the NDIS would
write back to me and say whereis your evidence that this is
going to work in their home?
So, I honestly think it was justso short-sighted.
(30:34):
It must have been.
It was so funny because the onethat came online actually had
errors in it.
It had all of these red linesand errors in it and we're like
somebody has done this sohastily.
It's still in draft.
Yeah, it's still in draft form,and it only dropped two and a
half weeks before the changeshad to be implemented.
(30:58):
So, as business owners, likeevery single allied health
business owner, has been frantic, so we've been frantically
advocating.
So if you go on my facebookpage, which I made public, which
I never do, um like, there'sall of these videos of me just
trying to explain what's goingon to get people on board to
sign the petition.
Um, and then we also had topivot and change our whole
(31:19):
business models and we had tocommunicate those changes to our
clients.
so I had to pay love, to do itbut I had to pay my admin staff
over time to communicate thosechanges to our clients.
So I had to pay love to do it,but I had to pay my admin staff
over time to communicate changesto clients for something that
was going to cost us money.
Kate Coomber (31:32):
And what's the impact of that been for you and
your business?
I was just going to ask yourbusiness, yeah, because when did
you have?
Samantha Miklos (31:36):
feedback.
Just recently this onlyhappened.
Yeah, so it's been the end offinancial year.
Judy Scott (31:50):
Yes, that's right.
It was the end of lastfinancial year, so it dropped
two and a half weeks before onejuly and we had to have it ready
on one july and it's you know,it's about a month now.
Yeah, so it's prettyastronomical.
So I'm sure clients wouldrespond, yes, how?
Yeah, well for us, thankfully,with the way that we had set up
our business, we hadn't actuallypulled every lever that we
could, so we just had to quicklymake, um, make two or three
changes.
Things we never oncharged toclients before we now have to
on-charge.
So we previously didn'ton-charge a mileage fee because
(32:13):
we were happy to absorb that andwe could absorb that before.
We can't absorb that now.
So that gets on-charge to theclient, and we also used to
absorb all of our preparationtime for seeing them.
We can't do that anymore.
So that all gets on-charge tothe them.
We can't do that anymore, sothat all gets on charge to the
client.
We never previously chargedcomponents of return travel.
We only charge return travel inreally isolated circumstances.
(32:33):
So we didn't charge that beforeand now we're on charging that,
like everywhere we possibly can, which it doesn't feel nice,
but to stay in business we haveto do this, and that is for your
clients, right?
Kate Coomber (32:45):
Yes, it's not even to stay in business.
We have to do this for yourclients, right?
Judy Scott (32:47):
yes, it's not even to stay in business for me, it's
to stay in business for thecommunity, exactly they will
have no services and there arealready numerous allied health
providers who are closing, andthere are others where I've seen
they've had to make peopleredundant, and even others where
I've seen they're negotiatingconversations with their staff
and lowering salaries, which isjust awful, wow and that's
(33:08):
already in such a short periodof time.
Kate Coomber (33:12):
And you mentioned there about physio rates
dropping.
What's happening with pay ratesacross the board?
If this is happening and peopleare having to ask staff to get
paid less what's actuallyhappening in?
The awards.
Judy Scott (33:22):
Well, the awards are actually going up, which I
don't understand it.
I don't, I don't Like.
Honestly, I think it's like thegovernment.
They just anyway they don'ttalk to each other.
I don't know.
It boggles my mind that onepart of the government is saying
you need to pay your staff moreand then the other part of it
is reducing our ability to getthe income that we need to be
(33:45):
able to do that.
Samantha Miklos (33:46):
Is that going to then lead to a move from
staff from private practice whowork in the NDIS wanting to then
go to government roles?
Yeah, definitely.
Is that what's going to happen?
We'll see a swing there.
Judy Scott (33:56):
Yeah, so we thankfully at MTC like because
you know my husband's anaccountant and all the things
like we are stable and, like Isaid, we've pivoted and made the
changes.
We've reassured our staff thatlike we are fine.
Samantha Miklos (34:08):
But some people just can't cope with it and
I've already had a couple ofpeople leave to go to government
jobs, which honestly, Icompletely get it, especially if
they've got friends in otherpractices who are being made
redundant or you know.
It's that fear, right, and thecost of living now is just so
crazy, that's right.
People want that stability.
Judy Scott (34:26):
That's right and, yeah, I really do appreciate it.
So we try and do everything wecan yeah, we absorb as much as
we can personally to make surethat we've got what we need to
pay our staff appropriately and,you know, provide for them in
all the other ways, all theother ways, but there's, there's
(34:46):
already, there's so many shiftsin the sector now, like, and
bigger companies are buying upsmaller providers as well, which
is, I know, some of thesebigger company owners, and I get
it because they're, they'reseeing a great opportunity.
Samantha Miklos (34:56):
Yeah, we can absorb those small businesses.
Judy Scott (34:59):
Yeah, yeah, and at least, then people still have
the opportunity to retain a joband also for the clients to
receive services.
But, because people are goingto start transitioning more to
government jobs or leaving thesector.
I've had people as well likeleave altogether.
Just I'm done.
Yeah, don't want to be atherapist anymore because the
stress is too much.
Yeah, we will see that thereare fewer therapists available.
(35:21):
We found just in the last monthour referral rate.
Through no changes in ourmarketing, our referrals have
increased by 25%.
And I would love that to be dueto our awesome reputation but
it's not.
Kate Coomber (35:34):
It's because other people are closing their doors
and not traveling.
Judy Scott (35:38):
I was speaking to one of my contacts who does
vehicle modifications and he wastelling me he used to have at
least two OTs come in a day todo with vehicle mods and he's
had one in the past monthbecause people aren't traveling
anymore.
So everyone's trying to convertto telehealth and remote ways
of working.
We made a decision as abusiness that we were going to
minimize, that we wanted ourtherapists to still be able to
(36:01):
go out face to face, because weknow that's the better way to
practice.
So, yep, we definitely made somechanges, but we're doing what
we can to still service theclients.
Samantha Miklos (36:12):
You talked about some of the challenges
there with award rates.
Is there other challenges thatAllied Health is facing right
now?
I mean, they're two big ones,but is there anything else?
Judy Scott (36:24):
In our particular world of NDIS, the really big
one is the frustration arounddealing with the agency itself.
So, as I mentioned, we do alllike as an OT, we do all the
trials and things forwheelchairs and write up reports
and consistently we find thatthey don't read our reports
properly.
They've even admitted itthemselves, like the previous
(36:45):
CEO admitted, that reports don'tget read, that we write and yet
if we don't write them in thiscopious amount of detail, they
undoubtedly will come back to usasking for more information.
So I think that's the biggestthing feeling like we have to
become report writers for thesake of compliance rather than
actually doing hands-on therapywith clients.
(37:06):
We would much rather save thatmoney from the plan for us.
Samantha Miklos (37:11):
Once we've got the wheelchair, let's go test it
out in all the environments andmake sure that you're really
comfortable.
And we've got it well set up,exactly right.
Are you comfortable?
Yes, all of that.
Judy Scott (37:18):
But we have to use so much of the funding Like I'm
not kidding, my most recentwheelchair report application
was over 30 pages and that's mejust using the NDIS template I
have to use.
Samantha Miklos (37:29):
Oh, wow yeah.
Kate Coomber (37:30):
And my.
Judy Scott (37:30):
HomeMods, one was over 40.
Kate Coomber (37:32):
Oh my goodness, With the advancements of AI, is
that going to help the rapportwriting?
And you know.
Samantha Miklos (37:40):
Possibly in some ways yeah.
Judy Scott (37:45):
We use AI for other things, like if I was creating a
visual schedule for a client.
There's cool ways you can useAI for that.
With the reports, it'sdifficult because we need to be
able to use our clinicalreasoning and justification, and
so AI can't really yet replacethat you know, like our ability
to see the person in theirenvironment doing their
occupation and explaining that.
I think eventually, eventually,like there is some assistance
(38:06):
coming for note writing, whichwill be awesome.
Um, as therapists, we stillhave a responsibility to make
sure those notes accuratelyrepresent the client.
But yeah, we haven't investedin it too heavily yet at mtc,
but looking into it at themoment.
Samantha Miklos (38:20):
Yeah, because at the end of the day, like that
ability to clinically reasonyou don't want that to be
replaced.
That's right, because thenwhere do we go?
Kate Coomber (38:27):
Yes, I don't think it could.
So what's the answer?
Samantha Miklos (38:34):
What are the opportunities?
What are the opportunities forthe industry?
What's the change that couldactually set this off in a
better direction?
Judy Scott (38:41):
I think if the government would meaningfully
engage with our peak bodies, soour OTA.
Samantha Miklos (38:46):
Are you part of OTA Australia?
Yeah, are you going to be thepresident one day?
Judy Scott (38:50):
You are, aren't you?
Maybe Are you on the council?
No, I'm not.
I've thought about it.
Samantha Miklos (38:56):
I feel like you should be, because are you
practicing clinically?
Judy Scott (39:00):
Yeah, I still do only with a few clients.
But, that's just because I'vegot a few clients I really love
and yeah, there's, you know, acouple of clients in particular.
Kate Coomber (39:07):
I'll never give up yeah, they'll have to pull me
away.
That must be great for the team, though to see that too, like
that probably really adds to theculture.
Judy Scott (39:14):
I hope so.
I get that feedback from theseniors and leads that they
think it's, yeah, reallymeaningful that I still practice
.
The main reason, though, why Istill practice is because I just
love it yeah.
I yeah, I can't turn that partof me off completely I think in
terms of the answer, yeah, thegovernment needs to engage
meaningfully with our peakbodies, because they made this
change with no consultation andjust the fact alone that we had
(39:37):
two and a half weeks toimplement it, it just seems so
cruel to me.
Samantha Miklos (39:40):
Yeah, it's a huge change for such a short
period with no consultation.
Judy Scott (39:44):
Absolutely massive.
Samantha Miklos (39:45):
Especially because, as a body, you might
have had some really great ideasin terms of other ways that
they could equally get the costsavings and efficiency.
Judy Scott (39:54):
If they would streamline the report templates
we have to use for differentpieces of applications to the
NDIS.
So much of that could bestreamlined If we could be
talking to a real therapist.
There are therapists who workin the NDIS but none of that
could be streamlined If we couldbe talking to a real therapist.
There are therapists who workin the NDIS but none of them
have that in their title.
It's very hidden.
So you know you never know.
You could be dealing with aplanner who used to do sales or
(40:15):
you might be dealing with atherapist.
You would never know If weactually had a contact in the
NDIS who was a therapist, whowas you, who was engaging with
us meaningfully about ourapplications and getting some
more consistency.
I think back to the oldapplications we did, back in
medical aid subsidy scheme,which was the Queensland
government one.
Samantha Miklos (40:32):
Yeah, I remember that they're a lot
shorter too from what you justdescribed.
Judy Scott (40:36):
They were so much shorter.
And it's just so funny nowlooking back, because I used to
get frustrated with dealing withmaths and now it's like, oh my
gosh, bring back maths,frustrated with dealing with
maths and now it's like oh mygosh, bring back the maths.
Kate Coomber (40:48):
Isn't that funny that I would have just assumed
that there were therapistssitting in that space and like,
yeah, actually dedicatedtherapists as consultation, like
I just assumed that would be athing you would think so if I
was setting up the NDIS.
Judy Scott (40:59):
I would set it up like that.
But it's not set up like that.
It's set up as an insurancescheme which, ironically, most
of our clients over 60% of themhave intellectual disabilities
or autism.
These are not people that aregoing to get better.
So the whole premise of thescheme is set up based on
somebody, perhaps, who has aphysical disability, who might
(41:20):
end up independent and notneeding support, with the right
equipment in place or whateverit's rehabilitating.
Kate Coomber (41:24):
Yes.
Judy Scott (41:25):
That is not the bulk of the clients who access the
scheme is not that type, yeah,so I think they made some
fundamental errors when they setit up originally.
It's tricky.
Kate Coomber (41:38):
So today we're going to be donating to a
charity of your choice, yep,where can we be doing that for?
Judy Scott (41:45):
That is so generous of you.
Thank you, it's a really kindthing to do.
Samantha Miklos (41:49):
It's the least it's just and also too like it's
an opportunity to shine a lightright.
Judy Scott (41:53):
Some of the charities are charities we've
never heard of you know.
Samantha Miklos (41:56):
So just to give them a moment.
Judy Scott (41:57):
Well, I'm curious as to if you've heard of the one
I've in the Darwin Children'sChristmas Party.
Samantha Miklos (42:03):
No, I love this so this is amazing.
Judy Scott (42:07):
This is obviously a charity based in Darwin.
Darwin for me, it's so close tomy heart because it's like an
accidental baby that you didn'tknow you were going to get and
then,
Kate Coomber (42:17):
you just love it.
That's like you For me.
I was going to say somethingelse, yeah.
Judy Scott (42:25):
So I really love Darwin and the work that our
team do over there is phenomenal.
Anyway, last year theyvolunteered because each of our
clinics we had them do adifferent charity as part of our
Christmas thing Christmasgiving and they volunteered at
the Darwin Children's ChristmasParty.
And what it is?
It's a gathering for childrenaged zero to 12 who have complex
disabilities or some kind ofcomplex social background, and
(42:47):
you know they have Santa comeand give presents and look after
them and treat them to abeautiful Christmas you know
children that otherwise?
might not have had such a thing.
Samantha Miklos (42:55):
That is incredible.
I'd love to support you.
It's great to learn about.
Oh yeah, we would absolutelylove that.
Thank you.
We've done a few over the years, just internally here.
There was one in Brisbane, theVariety Children's Christmas
Party, similar thing, and it wasjust so special being able to
give back and, you know, createChristmas you know, for families
Absolutely Well.
Judy Scott (43:14):
I was very proud of our Darwin crew last year when
they, yeah, went and volunteeredthere.
That's a great choice.
Samantha Miklos (43:18):
I love it, judy , thank you.
I have just so enjoyed this,and you know, I think learning
like we've learned about what anOT is.
Maybe I should go back, becauseit sounds like it's a little
bit better, maybe.
Maybe I tapped out too soon.
I don't know NDIS too, likethere's just so much unknown.
So even just to understand thata little bit better and and
(43:38):
understand the challenges youknow for the allied health
workforce, so I really hope thatthere's some change.
I dare say it'll take a littlewhile for you all.
But like, get on OT Australia,like you're such an advocate and
how lucky your team are to haveyou as founder for that
business.
It's just, it's beautiful tohear about how values led my
therapy crew is.
Judy Scott (43:58):
Amazing.
Thank you, it's been such anhonour being here.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for having me.
Kate Coomber (44:07):
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the
land of which we meet who, forcenturies, have shared ancient
methods of healing and cared fortheir communities.
We pay our respects to elders,past and present.
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