What is a Functional Capacity Assessment?
What is a Functional Capacity Assessment?
A Functional Capacity Assessment (FCA) is carried out by a professionally trained occupational therapist to analyse one’s abilities in carrying out their daily activities. FCAs are used to help the NDIS ensure participants receive the right among of support and funding to achieve their goals.
How does an FCA work?
There are three main components to an FCA.
- Initial Appointment – This appointment is conducted face-to-face in our clinic and takes approximately 1.5 hours.
- Home Assessment – The next stage of the FCA is a home-based assessment at the client’s residential address. This stage takes between 1.5 and 2 hours.
- Report Writing – The last stage of the FCA is the writing of a report. The clinician will conduct this independently and may gather further information as is necessary.
The three components of the FCA add up to 10 hours of clinical work, which includes travel to the client’s home and/or school. Due to the nature of the three stages of an FCA, the assessment may be completed over multiple days.
What happens in an FCA?
During the Initial Assessment, the clinician will conduct an interview with you to gather information regarding the client including their:
- Skills
- Strengths
- Challenges.
Then there will be a series of daily living activities to help identify concerns or challenges regarding different aspects of capabilities. There will also be some questions related to sensory items, fine motor and gross motor skills, and social skills.
The Home Assessment will include an investigation of the home environment including reviews of the following non-exhaustive list:
- Transfers
- Mobility
- Upper/lower body dressing
- Bathing
- Toileting
- Money management
- Meal preparation
- Cognition
The clinician will seek to identify what level of assistance may be required for participation in daily activities. This component will also include a more hands-on Functional Review of various daily activities.
Further assessment may be clinically required where standardized measures of functional limitations can be identified. If any further clinical assessment is needed, at a client’s school for example, this will be identified during this stage.
How much does an FCA cost?
The cost will be determined by the amount of time required to conduct the assessment. This depends on the complexity, time, and resources available at the time of the assessment.
One Central Health will create a Service Agreement Addendum (or a new Service Agreement in the event there is not a signed one in place already) for the NDIS funded 10 hours, inclusive of home or school visits if required, and will communicate to you whether the assessed needs for services is less than the maximum funding of 10 hours.
When will I receive the report?
Full and comprehensive reports are completed between 6 and 8 weeks from the date of the initial session. This timeframe is in line with industry standards and is designed to allow the clinician sufficient time to gather, collate, analyse and consider all of the necessary information. Once finalised, the report is then sent to the client.
Want to find out more about the Functional Capacity Assessment process?
If you have more questions, please make sure to give our team a call on (08) 9344 1318.
A member of our administrative team will be more than happy to help; for clinical/complex enquiries we will arrange for the occupational therapist to contact you directly.
