r/NDIS

Is there any recourse for sole traders who provide services and don't end up getting paid because the participants plan has run out of funding?

My sibling (with advanced MS) just passed away, obviously now leaving her room empty. It’s a 3 bedroom assisted living (purpose built -brand new) house. There is now only 1 resident remaining (as the 3rd bedroom has remained virtually empty for a year). I thought that sort of home would have no trouble filling rooms. Am I missing something? Problem is the 1 remaining resident may be forced to leave, which is devastating for them.

How will a digital payment platform (DPP) work in curbing fraud on NDIS? I understand how they exclude unauthorized billing by third parties, but how do they stop registered providers from rorting, overbilling, and unauthorised/ out-of-session billing? DPP can carry risk signals, but what is this information based on?

And what happens afterwards? Due to their labour intensiveness, manual and prepayment reviews only have the capacity to review l% of total monthly invoices.

How can DPP actually verify information in the invoice that's to be paid? As DPP is being touted as the government's solution to fraud on NDIS. Fraud makes for easy savings on NDIS, so it would be good to maximize safe gains.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently a second-year speech pathology student in Australia and I’m wondering if I’m allowed to work as an Allied Health Assistant (AHA), particularly in speech pathology settings.

I’ve seen mixed information online, some places seem to accept speech pathology students for AHA roles, while others ask for a Certificate III/IV in Allied Health Assistance.

Has anyone here worked as an AHA while studying speech pathology? If so:

• Were you eligible just based on being a student?
• Did employers require additional qualifications?
• What kinds of tasks were you allowed to do?

I’d especially appreciate advice from Australian speech pathology students, AHAs, or supervisors. Thanks!

Hi everyone I was wondering what I should do in this situation. My support worker asked for Nurofen or Panadol randomly in our shift and asked if I had any. Is this normal? Do I give it to her? I’m not sure I felt a bit uncomfortable but I don’t know I’m still new :)
Thank you!

My partner is just starting their 4th quarter of their plan for a psychosocial disability. We were fearing cuts like everyone else.

We heard from NDIA today that the plan will be rolled over for 12 months with no review 🙂

I had been telling myself not to panic, that we don't know what will happen yet, cross that bridge when we come to it, etc, basically trying to talk myself off the ledge... Turned out to be true, for another 12 months from July anyway.

So try not to panic everyone if possible, there's some hope yet.

Hello, I will keep this vague. My sister has recently told me that her and her husband have been misusing ndis funds. One of their kids is on the ndis and the husband claims some support hours so that directly get the funds. (He has another job and is claiming these hours through a abn) she told me it isn’t much, maybe 200-300 a week and they have been doing it for about 15 months. I instantly told her that it was not right and they are ripping off a system that they are lucky to have to support their daughter. She doesn’t see it that way and says the money is helping them. They definitely are not struggling and all in all the are a great family and I love them. I am conflicted though, as I would not dob her and her hubby in (the therapy’s really do help their daughter) but I’m also not ok with this.
Is this something that will sort its self out? As in what is the likely hood this will blow up in their face and they be found out and learn their lesson and pay it back? If I did potentially do something would they loose all their funding or just not be able to continue doing what they are doing?
I’m asking here as I think it’s very un Australian to dob in your family but it is also very un Australian to rip off a system that we are lucky to have.

Edit: A lot of you seem angry at me? I literally have just came for advice and agree with every one’s view. It is much easier to say dob then in when you’re not talking about your sibling and her family that you love. If this was a random person I would not hesitate. Also I don’t think there would be much of a paper trail as the husband is an accountant.

Hi all, I'm currently assisting a client who is newly on the NDIS with the above diagnoses. I'm also quite new to support work, so I'd like to get a better understanding on how this works for them and for future clients.

So far from our interactions, their depression and executive dysfunction really affects them day to day, which makes tasks quite difficult and causes a lot of visual clutter, which then triggers a sensory overload, paralysis, etc.

My clients saw on a Facebook post that the NDIS could fund things like a portable dishwasher, robot vacuum cleaner, gardener, and a personal trainer to assist with their anxiety and emotional regulation. My client is currently seeing an OT which seems like their eligibility for these items will depend on the report (please correct me if I'm wrong about anything).

I've done some reading but would like further clarification:

1. Home appliances like mini dishwasher, robot vacuum - I saw that this would be under the "replacement support" list. Is there a dollar cap or is the eligibility dependent on the OT report and is there something specific that the NDIS looks for in the OT report to approve of this?

2. Personal trainer - Can my client hire a qualified community personal trainer, or does it need to be an exercise physiologist or a support worker with fitness certificates? How regular can these sessions be? From what I read, the NDIS does not cover the gym fees as it's an everyday living expense, is this correct?

Many thanks in advance!

A disaster in the making

Do I rent an Ebike for Yber eats, or do I purchase one? Do I take out a loan from the Salvation Army? Do I need to apeak with an accountant? A Socail Worker? FIS? A Buisness man? What do I do?

Just got a txt msg from head office stating a participant I work with has had their funding cut and will no longer be receiving 24 hr support. This person has a complex intellectual disability, is wheelchair bound, can’t toilet themselves and their primary caregiver is an 87 year old who has been in and out of hospital multiple times the past few months due to their deteriorating health. That was one of the main reasons they got bumped up to 24/7 support. I knew the cuts would fuck people over who look “good” on paper, but I didn’t think they would affect someone as profoundly disabled as this. Absolutely fucking wild.

I’m looking for a sanity check about an AI chatbot app for NDIS participants.

It appears to be currently only available to NDIS participants. It is marketed to people aged 13+ with cognitive disabilities, psychosocial disabilities, processing difficulties, autism, acquired brain injury and/or intellectual disability.

The app is presented as helping with thinking, memory, understanding information, routines, decision making, daily life and NDIS goals. The website also uses a lot of language about building independence, consistent support, clinical frameworks, being “NDIS Designed” and to align with goals.

The founder/creator of the app also runs an NDIS service provider.

My main question is about the terms. The website could give the impression that this app is a tool to help someone think. But in the terms, they say the AI outputs may contain inaccuracies, omissions or bias, are not guaranteed to be accurate, complete, reliable, relevant or suitable, and that users should independently verify information before relying on it.

How does that work when the target users may include children and people whose disabilities may affect comprehension, judgement, memory, decision making or even their ability to identify mistakes?

Does that term negate the impression the website makes?

The website also appears to make strong claims about safety, cognitive support, NDIS goal alignment, independence, decision-making support and reducing incidents in SIL. I cannot see clear public evidence, independent testing, trials, clinical validation or external review supporting those claims. That may exist privately, but I cannot find it publicly.

There also seem to be timing questions. Some white paper style materials appear to be dated a year before the public launch and before the current company/operator appears to have been publicly registered. I’m not saying that is wrong, but it makes me wonder what evidence, testing, pilots or review existed when those claims were being made.

Also, does involvement and consultation with people with disabilities mean external consultation or does it include information from clients who use your provider service and/or users?

There is also public information that appears to discuss the app overseas as a commercial/scalable caretech product before months before launch, but the current marketing says it is designed specifically for NDIS participants and NDIS plans.

Again, I’m not saying that is wrong, but it raises questions for me about what it claims to do, safeguards, funding pathways, conflicts of interest and whether users understand the possible commercial context of the app?

This is not an allegation, but if a product has commercial intentions from inception, launches on NDIS, and is possibly using NDIS participants as their like, first wave of release, and using all that information and data to develop the product, is their a responsibility for the consumer/NDIS participants to be made aware of this?

I think accessible technology is a good thing. I’m just trying to understand what standard practice is here.

Would people with experience see this as a legitimate concern or am I reading too much into it?

I feel like I read a few comments somewhere on here this year from people who requested a review of a decision, and when following up later was told the request had been cancelled because they’re “too busy” to do them. But they had not been notified.

Now I’m wondering if my mind is playing tricks on me. Is there anyone who has actually had this happen to either them as a participant or to participants you support as a worker? I know NDIA is understaffed and things are taking time, so I realise there’s a wait and that’s fine. If the requests being cancelled without any notification is actually happening to some people though I’d like to be aware of that so when I contact my coordinator with a few other questions I can ask for help with following up with them to make sure it’s still pending in the queue of things they have to get to, and not waiting on something they’ve decided to cancel without looking at

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/mark-butler-defends-automated-decisionmaking-for-ndis/news-story/eb056f3520b385d55df0691a0ebbe245?amp#

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Mark Butler defends automated decision-making for NDIS

Automation will become an increasingly big part of how social programs across the country are administered in the future, says Health Minister Mark Butler.

Health and NDIS Minister Mark Butler has defended his move to bring more automated decision making into the National Disability Insurance Scheme, declaring automation will become an increasingly big part of how social programs across the country are administered in the future.

Laying out his vision for greater “budget setting” in the 760,000 custom and highly variable NDIS plans as a way to achieve the government’s $185bn in projected savings, Mr Butler said he was both proud and overwhelmed to be taking on the biggest reforms to the scheme in its history.

It follows the Labor powerbroker last month unveiling plans for 160,000 people to be diverted away from the NDIS over the next 10 years and reverse plummeting community confidence in the $56bn-a-year scheme.

Speaking on The Australian’s The Front podcast just hours after introducing legislation central to achieving those reforms, and which will empower him to intervene directly in NDIS pricing decisions, Mr Butler said the lessons of Robodebt were “front of mind” when bringing in more automation to the NDIS.

The government is pushing ahead with major changes to the NDIS, aiming to slow costs, crack down on fraud and reshape the scheme for the future. In this interview, the minister opens up about the pressure of leading the overhaul, concerns from participants and why he believes the reforms are necessary.

“I think there’s automation in pretty much all social programs, even if that’s the processing of payments at some level, and we are going to see more opportunity for that in the future,” he said.

“You’re seeing that in the private sector, you will see that in public sector.

“(We will be) making sure that we’re careful about the risks, that humans are always in the loop in making important decisions.”

Mr Butler said he understood concerns around automation in social programs after the “painful, sometimes tragic experience” of Robodebt, which was laid bare through a royal commission launched by Labor to scrutinise the ultimately unlawful automated debt collection practices taking place under the then Liberal government. The senior cabinet minister, installed to the portfolio as Anthony Albanese’s “fixer” for the scheme, said his efforts to improve the NDIS were similar to what was done to Medicare in the 1980s.

“We often see social programs after they’ve been in place for a number of years have to be revisited,” he said. “I’ve talked to people who were around in the ’80s and they had to do that a bit with Medicare to make sure that you’ve ironed out creases and it’s really set up for the longer term.

“I think it’s fair to say the NDIS has more creases than most.”

A key challenge identified by Mr Butler in reducing the annual growth of the NDIS to 5 per cent by 2030 – in line with Medicare’s growth rate – was the sheer unpredictability in individual plan budgets that ranged from less than $20,000 a year to more than $1m for those with the highest needs.

“One of the things we want to achieve ... is having consistency, not just about the details of the plan, but predictability about budgets, and so budget setting plan by plan,” he said. “This is something you see in other programs like aged care, where there are essentially nine levels of package with a budget set for each level.”

While cautioning that it was not possible to get to the same degree of planning as in home care, where packages range from about $10,000 to $80,000, Mr Butler said it was clear there needed to be a greater ability to set NDIS budgets. “We want to make sure that we have the ability to set budgets, rather than having effectively 760,000 different budgets, we have a little bit more consistency,” he said. “Part of that budget setting will obviously be thinking about how sustainable the scheme is and the degree to which it’s staying consistent with the budget that’s been set by government.”

The sustainability of the disability program will become a bigger part of decision making under Labor’s proposed legislation, due to pass with the support of the Liberals in coming weeks, along with other factors such as a person’s eligibility for mainstream services and what family supports are available to them.

While Queensland has remained resistant to ticking off an agreement with the commonwealth on bolstering those mainstream state services to better care for disabled Australians outside the NDIS, Mr Butler said he was confident the Crisafulli government “will come to the table”.

He said the presumptions in last week’s federal budget, which set annual growth for the scheme in the short term at between 0.2 and 4.7 per cent, were calculated carefully to be achievable.

“We’ve crunched those numbers very carefully and I’m very confident we’ll achieve that,” he said. “The reset of the program will mean that growth does slow very considerably over the course of the four-year budget period and then returns to that level that I marked out last year of about 5 per cent per year, which is broadly inflation plus population growth.”

Mr Butler said the proposed reforms were necessary for the scheme’s survival, but that he was aware of how “confronted” participants and their families were about the prospect of change.

“I’ve seen the change in circumstances for these hundreds of thousands of people,” he said. “I know how deeply attached to this scheme they are. I also know, frankly, how confronted they are about the prospect of change, how uncertain, indeed anxious many of them are about this change.

“I’m proud to be the minister in this portfolio every single day. I’m also a little bit overwhelmed sometimes by the challenge of getting this scheme reset right.”

I made a post yesterday about a participant I work with whose primary carer is 87 years old and has had their 24 hr funding completely cut and their 1:1 funding drastically (draaaastically) reduced. I deleted the post bc it blew up a bit and even though I didn’t put any identifying details I still felt uncomfortable knowing there was a small chance someone here might know the person and put two and two together… privacy and all that… anyways, participant is apparently (understandably) completely devastated and hasn’t stopped crying since they were told. There were some fantastic comments on what the next appropriate steps to take were, both things that I as a support worker could do (besides the usual incident reports) and what the PWDs plan manager, family members and other “higher ups” could do like write a letter to the NDIA. I wish I had screenshot some of the replies but I didn’t think to until I had already clicked delete 😓
What’s terrible about this whole thing is now all the hard work that was put in to give this person a voice and some autonomy over their life has gone down the drain and their primary carer will now be back in full control of their lives, which is a very complicated situation for various reasons I won’t go into online.
If anyone who had taken their time to comment helpful things on what to do now would be kind enough to share again (sorry to ask, but I’m at a loss) I would deeply appreciate it.

Thank you so much 🙏