What a prosthetics and orthotics assessment is
This assessment collects information from you and your assistive technology assessor. It describes your situation and recommends the most suitable and cost-effective prostheses or orthoses to meet your needs and help you work towards your goals. The assessment should include information about assistive technologies or therapies you’ve tried previously and why they did or did not work for you.
It’s important to include information about any clinical trials and professional assessments you’ve completed. It’s also important to include detail about the prostheses or orthoses your health professional recommends, such as:
- what it’s made of
- what components it has (for example, joints)
- how much it costs to make and maintain.
Tip: What kind of professionals need to provide evidence for the assessment?
Depending on your situation, your assessor might be an allied health practitioner, such as a prosthetist or orthotist, or a medical or clinical professional who specialises in limb assessments.
What a prosthetics and orthotics assessment is for
We need information and evidence to help us decide about the right prostheses or orthoses for you. We’ll generally provide funding for the most cost-effective prostheses or orthoses. This means we’ll first look at items with the minimum necessary components to meet your needs and support you to work towards your goals.
If you would like us to consider a more expensive option, we’ll need information and evidence that shows you’ve tested the lower cost option and explains why it isn’t suitable for you.
We also need to understand:
- why the more expensive option will benefit you in the longer term
- how it will increase your independence
- how it will build your capacity
- how it will reduce the other NDIS supports in your plan, like personal care supports.
What the assessment looks like
We have a template to guide the assessment and what information we need. You don’t have to use the prosthetics and orthotics assessment template if you don’t want to.
The evidence you provide must include all the information described in the template. An appropriate quote must also be provided.