14 September 2018
Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on NDIS:
ICT systems
Develop Therapy Services is a private practice that provides occupational therapy,
physiotherapy, podiatry and aquatic therapy services to children and adults in
metropolitan and rural./remote South Australia. We have been a registered provider of
the NDIS in South Australia, since the inception of the NDIS providing services since the
initial early intervention trial site to the state in 2013.
We welcome the opportunity to provide this joint committee with response to the terms of
reference:
a. The participant and provider experiences of the MyPlace Portal; The continuing improvements to the interface and workings of the MyPlace Portal
have been noted and appreciated.
It has been useful to have the new ‘tiles’ added once ready, with the system
gradually becoming more complex. This complexity may be daunting to some who
are entering the NDIS at this later stage when they are confronted with the many
options.
The MyPlace Portal is consistently used by staff for claiming fees for services
provided. To do this we regularly make service bookings with the participant for an
agreed service provision package that is linked to their current plan.
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It is useful that we can now see the annual plan dates to know when a funding cycle is coming to an end.
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However, when plans are not reviewed in a timely manner, participants fall into a “plan gap “ that interrupts service provision, or “plan extension”. Both
of these delay additional funds to be released into the system, despite
being promised making it impossible to make revised/new service bookings
to enable claiming of funds. Without this service booking, our organisation
ABN: 69 612 222 732 (08) 8346 4580 214 Port Road, HINDMARSH 5007
www.developot.com.au admin@developot.com.au PO Box 16, HINDMARSH 5007
is unable to make any claims and carries a financial liability. As children
move out of the Early Intervention Stream of NDIS there are no guarantees
that they will continue to receive support. Some do, others are rejected
and a lengthy appeal or review process of the decision occurs.
- The service booking quarantines funds to an organisation. The ICT system does not allow us to see how the service booking is reducing over time as
claims are made. Despite attempts to budget the funds appropriately over
the year, it does result in suddenly funds being insufficient for services,
particularly if there are unexpected needs towards the end of the plan date.
- Parents of participants have reported that they are able to see their package of funding, and how much has been spent, e.g. 70% has been
spent. However, they are unable to see how this expenditure has occurred
over their package of supports. For example, After 9 months (¾ way
through year), they may be able to see they have 70% spent but not know
that they have spent only 50% on core supports, but 95% on therapeutic
supports, or visa versa. This makes it hard for participants and their
parents/carers to plan appropriate services for the remaining time.
- Some service providers have book up large chunks of the budget, that are then needed to be released for other service providers to be able to provide
input. The MyPlace Portal does not enable an organisation to see who
else is involved, or made the booking. This requires negotiation back
through the parents and NDIS to enable releasing of funds. This release of
funds seems to be unduly lengthy.
b. the impact of the role of other Government agencies on the ICT infrastructure; No comment
c. the appropriateness of the MyPlace Portal and agency facing IT systems; Our organisation uses a Mac platform to interface with NDIS. Initially this created
some issues but these seem to have been resolved over time.
d. the impact of ICT infrastructure on the implementation of the NDIS; and This has been a complex process where NDIS has been creating systems whilst
attempting provide services.
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Initially with the National roll-out on July 1 2016 with new systems to what had been
used during the trial periods there was a massive crash, particularly in the ability to
make claims that created a period of extreme financial hardship for providers, and
issues that have taken many months to resolve. It has improved significantly since
then. Making the necessary changes and modifications to the ITC systems has
meant that there have been changes to the user interface that staff discover
unexpectedly when they log in on the next working day. Some of these changes have
been easy to negotiate, others have been challenging. There has not always been
clear, simple to read communications about changes.
e. any other related matters Telephone Communications: It is now great that when ringing the 1800 number for
an enquiry, it is not likely that you will be on hold for over an hour before speaking to
someone, and the staff answering are polite, courteous, and helpful. The additional
staff have assisted in this, however they are not always able to answer specific
enquiries. They then send an email to someone more knowledgeable to whom you
are expecting will reply to answer specific enquiries. The name of this ‘someone’ is
not given, nor their personal email. This causes waiting times for all issues, including
financial, therapeutic, and assistive technology. There is no way of directly following
this up, instead the process begins again with the call centre when responses have
not been received. EG A question was raised two weeks ago and we are still waiting
for a response to this. We have no way of continuing the initial discussion, instead
need to raise the question again if we want to escalate a response.
Email Communications: Email communication appears to be the preferred method
of communicating, and NDIS has a system of using generic addresses for external
providers and participants. They also use this as a method for internal
communications. Issues that our organisation, and participants have experienced are
- after an automatic reply that the email has been received, there is a delayed response of 2 weeks or most frequently more, if at all. For example a 5 year
old participant with a rare neuromotor developmental condition and his family
have been waiting since mid July for approval of his current plan. Despite
emails sent they only received one reply with general information directing
them to a fact sheet. The waiting for a response, and then gaining inadequate
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information has been frustrating, and increased the stress and emotional
distress the family has experienced.
- There is no way to have urgent emails attended to within a 24 hour period. This has an impact when there is a sudden change conditions in a participant’s
abilities, supports, or living situation and safety issues become evident.
- Emails have become lost. This has resulted in potential participant’s applications being lost, and in re-sending of information required for AT
Requests. As time is given waiting for contact from NDIS, time becomes
drawn out, and delays issues being solved which become more complex to
resolve by the delay in time.
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Delays in responding to emails of over 90 days has resulted in appeals against decisions closed without action.
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At times individual names and contact details are shared for specific issues, e.g. to solve financial issues, or a planner may request some direct
interactions. This is not consistent, and if there they are away, there is no
notification for the end user, who is left waiting for reply.
Recommendations:
MyPlace Portal
- Service Bookings / Financial:
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Amounts to show decreasing balance as funds have been spent, in line with plan dates
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Enable Participants to see how their budgets are being spent over the differing areas of support.
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Reduce time for release of funds from one agency to another
ICT Systems
- Filtering and responding to emails needs to happen in a more timely manner.
- Methods for noticing and covering for NDIS staff leave of greater than 2 days with an automatic out of office address, or diversion to an alternate staff member who
may be able to resolve the issue. Life happens with events such as sickness,
leave interrupting work.
- Creation of an urgent response system for providers with concerns to be able to contact and gain a response. This is particularly when urgent support is needed
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for example assistive technology or core supports. Definitions of urgent would
assist this process.
- Continuing to develop the communication systems which inform organisations of changes to the portal
Submitted by:
Alison Copley and Sonya Murchland, Directors
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