To the committee,

As a support coordinator, I have had constant communication with NDIA, scheduled and nonscheduled interactions. Overall, most agents have been pleasant to communicate with over the phone, although 90% of the calls they apologize for the wait since the system is always slow.

My worry with the NDIA is the constant misinformation from the agents themselves. Each agent interprets the NDIS legislation, rules and policies differently, and you can receive conflicting answers about the same exact issue/subject depending on who you talk with.

Let’s take, for example, the Consent forms. Both the consent to share and consent for a third party to act on your behalf forms have the option to select a person or an organization to consent to. I work in a company and will go on maternity leave soon, so I advised all my clients to sign the consent for the company and not me specifically, otherwise they would have to sign the same documents again when I’m on leave. They have all agreed to it as they are tired of the continuous signing, they must do for all service agreements every new plan.

Some of the consent forms I sent to NDIA have been accepted. Others have not. Some I have been able to argue that there is an option for organisation, and they have been accepted that, other’s there was no arguing since I only found out they had not been accepted when I contacted the NDIA to ask for information regarding the participants.

If NDIA only accepts consent forms with a person’s name on it, not an organisation, then the consent forms must be redone. And if each support coordinator needs to collect new signatures every time, the NDIA must increase support coordination hours as signature collecting is not a simple task when most participants lack time, understanding, ability, a proper device to sign or lack support coordination hours for travel to the participants.

Another case I personally had was regarding a commode to a participant. New plan was approved in April, however actual plan with line items and approved AT was only sent in August. Participant had applied for commode, that was approved, hhowever we were both unaware of it due to not having the plan. Participant inquired about the commode to the OT that advised it can take months for NDIS approval. When plan was received and commode was in the new plan, I quickly jumped into action to get a new quote as the one sent was expired, and to get everything into place.

I asked plan managers, and they advised the provider should invoice NDIA directly as funds were there. Provider advised plan manager should invoice NDIA. I contacted NDIA in 3 different occasions regarding the issue and had three different answers. The commode is yet to be delivered due to import issues with materials.

I recently discussed Finding and Keeping a Job capacity building for two participants during plan reassessments. One planner advised that would be alright, he just required a quote. The other planner said NDIS did not fund that and the participant would have to go through disability employment services.

On yet another case, an LAC advised that we could quickly increase a participant’s core funding due to emergency situation (only carer was in hospital, no informal supports, 14 y.o. participant required STA), however LAC went on leave and NDIS did not look at my request. 4 weeks after it was sent, we finally had a meeting with the LAC as they were back from leave.

I’ve had LAC/Planners that took their time during meetings to explain to the participants why some things could ot be funded under their plan, giving examples of consumables or services that would be funded and some that could not. Other LAC’s, to my shock, agreed with the clients that “things must be worded in a specific way so NDIS will accept them” and that it’s the support coordinators job to “think outside the box” regarding borderline illegal funding usage that me and the plan managers kept trying to explain to the client, but the client did not accept it and changed providers.

NDIS needs to develop clearer rules and legislations, with less gray areas, so the NDIA agents have clearer instructions as they do not seem to have a strong understanding of how NDIS plans should function, which leaves providers confused and plunges the funding for support coordinators that need to chase after many different parties to get a resolution.

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NDIA has also consistently reduced support coordination hours and increase the expectations of what support coordinators must do. On first NDIS plans, even if a person has informal supports in place, they are all confused and overwhelmed trying to understand what they can and cannot do with their funding, which allied health professionals can assist them better and how the whole system works.

Yet, first NDIS plans are being issued with either none or 24 to 30 hours of support coordination for a 24-month plan. However, support coordinators are expected to complete implementation plans, risk assessments, implementation reports, end of plan reports, search for NDIS providers, search for mainstream providers, search for social groups, speak with all the support team and build the participants capacity to do all of that on their own.

Participant’s support coordination funding has been either exhausting itself rather quickly as finding providers, especially good providers, is a close to impossible mission now, with 2-year waitlist or constant staff changes, or, support coordinators try to use the funding to build on participants capacity to search for providers themselves and explain how the whole process works, with lengthy emails and step by step explanations, and the participants are getting overwhelmed and losing motivation as it is a lot to take in at once.

If expectations on support coordinators is this high, if so much is expected of us, there should be significantly more hours given so we can actually assist the clients face-to-face on how to look for supports and complete referral forms, how to choose their supports, what type of reports are necessary, how to talk with plan managers about low-cost AT and letters of recommendation, and overall how NDIS works. As with any capacity building, this should be a slow process and would take considerable time to achieve the NDIS self-coordination goal.

The newest barrier implemented by NDIA is sending emails stating “Advising that the case has been actioned and closed, please contact 1800 800 110 or enquiries for any follow up questions/concerns in relation to this case.” Without a reference number or a participant’s NDIS number. Is that another way for support coordinators to use the clients funding to call the NDIA and ask for feedback on each and every client on our caseloads? It does take at least 10 minutes per participant as we have to repeat our details for each participant, wait for the note taking and get the reference number.

The only consistent information provided by NDIA is that providers travel is not funded by the NDIS. I cannot honestly understand such determination, since NDIS pricing guideline gives permission for providers to charge travel, however it is not funded.

Since the pandemic, many providers have changed the way they service the community and have realized that travelling to clients or providing telehealth has significant benefits for both the providers and the clients. There was also significant movement in the allied health industry, with many professional moving to other states, leaving the country or changing professions. The waitlists for face-to-face in clinic allied health sessions are overwhelming and many providers are no longer adding people to the waitlists as the wait is of 2 years already.

Many participants only have the option for face-to-face appointments within home sessions, which include travel time. The consistent denial of NDIS to cover providers travel is not aligned with how the industry is organized now. Monthly allied health professional sessions are reduced to bi-monthly due to providers travel and report writing.

Participants are taking longer to achieve the goals due to less sessions and taking longer to build rapport with the allied health professionals. NDIS needs to either extinguish travel time in metropolitan areas or add travel time to participant’s funding when there is an allied health professional in place that the participant is happy with and wants to continue to engage with.

The NDIA lacks consistency, communication and lacks an understanding of the participants. NDIA looks for each and every reason to not fund activities and therapies that will help participant engage in the community and work on their goals by constantly asking for more documentation. The participants are apt until proven inept by at least 3 different professionals in 6 months, otherwise the documents are not valid and need to be

• redone. It is a waste of funding and time, and it feels like the NDIA is putting barriers so the participants will stop trying and return to their homes to hide from society.