Good morning, Thanks for taking my submission on this issue. I am a provider ( a plan manager) and a mother to three children participating in the NDIS. I’d like to step out the issues I have had as succinctly as possible:
- As a provider
-
When fees were indexed on 02/07/2018 I had many client plans that were not indexed. Not only were we not told about the issues, I have been on the phone and in emails to various areas of the NDIS since 03/07/18 to seek corrections and clarifications for my issues. Basically a number of things happened to my plans: -mistakes were made by internal IT people when manually increasing the Plan manager components of the plan – eg one plan was originally with $500.18, after a staff member changed it my fees were reduced to $200.06 When I complained I was told it was my fault (even though I had several record to prove I had not taken the extra, that it c ould not be undone, that I would need to ask the participant for a review, and that it was an IT issue – then it was a provider payment issue. This only got fixed on 07.09.2018 and cost me an estimated four hours to fic on its own
-
I had many plans indexed but they were 6-12 cents short in fees claimable. When I sent emails (no response) called (no response) then finally had an IT ticket lodged, I had each client (more than 30) lodged as independent tickets. This meant I was being called multiple times by IT about the same issue. This meant that even thought the first person had one hypothesis the next person had no record of my conversation. One of the IT people suggested I should just write off the missing amounts. I said to him, I get paid $100.18 – and only 200.18 for every client regardless of how many hours I send on their plans. For one client I am at 12 hours this month because of IT. Would you accept less than your pay? He laughed. I had to tell him I refused to close the ticket. Another IT guy told me he would consolidate the tickets to one as they were all the same issue. However I kept getting phonecalls. Every single person has not been able to explain the issue (other than accusing me of taking the money, to which I stated I have solid, reconciled evidence that what I lodged in the portal was exactly what I claimed form the portal this is part of the requirements of my registration as a bookkeeper). This is still not fixed and so far has cost me more than 10 hours in corro, phonecalls and emails.
-
I have 7 clients to date that have come on with their plans approved after 01.07.18 yet their plans reflect the old 1718 fees, not the 1819 fees. This means that instead of being able to receive 222.85 as a setup fee and 100.18 as a monthly fee, I can only receive 218.27 and 98.12 respectively. Apparently, after questioning this since July 1 (and being told many different explanations) the last person from provider payments called me the other day to tell me that they cannot change because they have incorrectly been lodged as STATED SUPPORTS. The only way to change it is to ASK THE CLIENT FOR PERMISSION TO DO A LIGHT TOUCH REVIEW. I said tyo her, “so, you expect me, because of a mistake made by NDIS to go to a client and tell them they have to call NDIS and ask for a light touch review for me? Do you understand what the word “review” means to clients? She said “well, otherwise you will just have to wear the error. Now, over seven plans to date that is $65 – so to someone who is getting a guaranteed wage each week probably not a lot. But again, I need to say as a plan manager we can only get paid $100.18 per month regardless of what time we spend. And everyother person in the system got a payrise on July 1.
-
Finally, a number of plans that were not indexed were passed back to me by IT to change myself. I had to split existing bookings into two parts to allow indexation to go through. Not only was this confusing but it again has created a huge burden on me. I now have to keep a spreadsheet that itemises each of my 55 clients and each issue, what I have been able to claim, what I cannot. I have told IT and Provider Payments that I am in a critical situation
with cashflow but I am not getting any answers fast enough. I am looking at another month where I cannot claim fees from the system because they are not correct.
-
The IT people have all been unhelpful, a bit arrogant and also demonstrated a lack of understanding of how plan managers work.
-
I have had numerous issues with the portal, easily the most frustrating portal I have ever seen. For example, as a plan manager I should be able to move money between core supports as they are completely flexible, booked with me and I have a signed agreement with my participants. However, if a client only has social, community and civic core booked out, I vcannot always then reduce the allocation and create a new booking for daily activities. In fact, when I called the helpdesk last Tuesday about this, I was told to just fit the supports into the existing category and not worry about it. Seriously. said “You should know how to do this as a provider” – To which I said “I am calling the NDIS provider helpdesk – can you really not help me? I am trying to do the right thing” – and he said “I don’t know, just fit it in however” – so I said –“so you are advising me to basically lie about which category best fits the invoice” and he said “Yes”
-
I have had to join a number of Facebook groups who have solutions that the helpdesk do not.
-
Overall, this is just the major issues. We seek to avoid having to call, instead trying workarounds or other ways. We are on our own and since plan managers should be considered part of the NDIS team I find the lack of support surprising and very unprofessional
- As a parent I have found the portal confusing. I had some access set up, the next time it wasn’t there. I then had to lodge an IT helpdesk support, and ended up getting an activation code in the post that expired by the time it got here. So now I cannot bring myself to try and get in as I already know what my clients are telling me – not enough information. Portal hard to read. Hard to understand where the expenses are. Hard to share a plan with a plan manager.
Thanks again for allowing me to submit.