Bridge SaaS is tapping into the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) provider market, including a growing number of providers choosing not to be registered with the Federal Government. 

The all-in-one tech platform of Bridge SaaS (ASX:BGE) has the single objective of driving efficiencies throughout the multi-billion-dollar NDIS sector.

CEO Jamie Conyngham said its platform provides software to support NDIS providers, enabling them to manage their client appointments, tasks for the day and bureaucratic documentation for compliance and claims from the Federal Government.

He said a growing number of both registered and unregistered providers presents enormous opportunities for BGE.

The latest NDIS Quarterly report to disability ministers shows there’s now more than 145,000 providers.

Conyngham said the figures show 90% of providers aren’t registered and there’s a trend for providers to go unregistered now.

“Bridge can be used by unregistered providers as well,” he said. “These unregistered providers send their invoices directly to NDIS participants, their carers or plan managers, who then pay the provider before claiming the cost back from the government.

“It’s an avenue for these unregistered providers to avoid the process of compliance for being a registered provider, but still serve NDIS participants.”

Unregistered providers boost addressable market

Conyngham said for Bridge these unregistered providers mean they have more potential customers to target, and their addressable market is growing substantially.

“The market is actually eight times what we thought it was and we didn’t realise just how big this trend of being an unregistered NDIS provider had become,” he said.

“These unregistered providers can be a whole lot of small companies providing a range of services such as speech therapy or gardening services as there’s a long list of services you can claim from the NDIS.”

He said these unregistered providers are looking for the core functionality the platform brings, like a CRM.

“What we’ve learned through our recent marketing is that many of these providers want a platform like a Bridge to keep all their participant information and documents together, and be able to send their clients SMS and messages, which they can easily do on our platform,” he said.

Conyngham said the unregistered providers might provide services for NDIS participants, but it may not be the main component of their business and that’s why they haven’t registered with the government.

“They might, for example, run a yoga studio and then do some special classes for some NDIS participants – so it’s only part of their business and so they thought ‘no need to register’,” he said.

“I believe that there is a lot of that going on.”

Huge potential with NDIS

BGE started their platform back in 2008 to streamline compliance and organisational tasks for providers in the employment services market, before the company’s recent entry into the care market.

The company has already gone through a Federal Government security audit and controls as part of its Department of Employment and Workplace Relations accreditation.

It moved into the NDIS realising its huge potential as one of the Federal Government’s biggest spends, which these key facts on the NDIS clearly support:

  • Has more than 550,000 participants in the scheme
  • Spend by the Federal Government in FY23 is $35.8 billion
  • Spend forecast to grow to $50 billion by 2026
  • Scheme already bigger than Medicare and aged care
  • At $50 billion NDIS spend will be close to amount spent on defence

Having listed on the ASX on October 6, 2022 BGE now offers investors exposure to the growing sector.

On its board as a non-executive director is National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) former chief executive Martin Hoffman.

Bridge is also seeking to enter complementary vertical markets including aged care, which the Federal Government spent $23.6 billion on in FY22.

“It’s another area we want to move into once we get a foothold in NDIS,” Conyngham said.

This article was developed in collaboration with Bridge SaaS, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.  

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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