Wow! It’s been quite a year, hasn’t it?
With the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Review, the NDIS Amendment Bill (which is now law), and a multitude of taskforces on the Disability Royal Commission, fraud, pricing, and provider and worker registration, 2024 has been a rollercoaster ride!
And amid all the uncertainty, the disability community has also been getting to grips with the changes arising from the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Agency’s (NDIA) PACE computer system and the Australian Government’s rules about the supports people can and can’t spend their NDIS funding on.
Lots of participants now have new-look plans and some have unfamiliar categories of funding and stated supports where flexibility previously existed. In most cases, it’ll just take time to learn how everything works, but for some people, a change of plan – or adjustments to the one they already have – will be needed.
So, how do you go about it? If you’re seeking a change, here’s a guide to help you understand the options available to you.
Usually initiated by the Agency a few months before your plan reassessment is due, a participant check-in provides an opportunity for you or your nominee to speak with the NDIA about your plan, your funding, your supports, and your experience as a participant in the NDIS.
The Agency uses check-ins to start the ball rolling for plan reassessments, so it’s important to be prepared. The things you discuss during a check-in might mean:
If you joined the Scheme to access supports you no longer need, this might be discussed during the check-in too.
Take a look at our article about check-ins and click on this page on the NDIS website to find out more.
To help you prepare for a check-in, you can also download NDIS booklets and fact sheets here.
Whether you initiate it, or the Agency does, your plan reassessment meeting is a milestone in the lifecycle of your NDIS plan.
Conducted face-to-face, over the phone, or even via a video call, plan reassessments involve you (and your nominee or support people, if you have them) and a representative of the NDIA talking about you, your plan, your funding, and how you use it.
You’ll be asked about things like what’s worked, what hasn’t, whether your circumstances have changed, the supports you use (or want to use), and the progress you’ve made – and the Agency will then decide whether any changes need to be made.
It’s important to prepare for your plan reassessment meeting, and that means making sure you’re on top of things like having your providers prepare assessments or progress reports, thinking about your supports and any changes you’d like the NDIA to make, and writing down any questions you want to ask during the meeting.
If you need changes made to your plan before your scheduled reassessment date, you can contact the NDIA at any time to ask whether adjustments are possible.
If you lodge a request for a plan reassessment without clear evidence, it may be declined, so be sure to have everything ready to present to the Agency. If you ask the NDIA to reassess your plan, you’ll get a response within 21 days to let you know if it will be varied or replaced, or if it will stay the same.
You can find out more about plan reassessments here.
Sometimes a change can be made to your plan without a plan reassessment. If that happens, it’s called a plan variation.
Variations are usually quite small changes – like correcting minor errors, changing details related to an existing stated support, or setting a new reassessment date – but the NDIS Act also allows plans to be varied in crisis or emergency situations, or if new information is provided in response to a request from the Agency.
Things change – that’s just part of life – but if those changes affect the NDIS supports you receive, you should let the NDIA know.
The Agency needs to know about changes to things such as:
Think a change in circumstances might apply to you? This page on the NDIS website has the information you need.
If you’re not happy with a decision the NDIA makes, you can ask the Agency to reconsider it by requesting an internal review of a decision.
There are some decisions the NDIA can review, and some it can’t – but if it agrees to an internal review, the Agency will check to see that the right decision was made under the law by looking at the facts and circumstances at the time of the internal review.
If more information is needed, you’ll be contacted, but you can also provide additional information when you ask for a review.
If you want to request an internal review of a decision, you have three months to do it from the date you received the original decision from the NDIA in writing. Find out more about internal reviews here. You can submit a request here.
These Guidelines will tell you more about the process and what to do if you don’t get the outcome you’re after.
If you’ve been through the internal review process and you’re still not satisfied, there are other options available to you – including asking the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) to look at the NDIA’s decision. This is known as an external review.
The ART, which has replaced the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, can consider most internal review decisions. It’s completely separate from the NDIA and the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, and it exists to make sure the decisions that both those make are legally correct and fair.
The ART can look at matters including:
You can find out more about external reviews here.
Want to apply? You have 28 days from the time the NDIA makes its internal review decision to do so. Click here to get started or contact the ART for more information.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed at the thought of an external review or you just need a bit of extra support, you don’t have to go it alone. The NDIS Appeals Program was set up by the Department of Social Services to help people with disability and others affected by reviewable decisions of the NDIA.
To access support, you just need an outcome from an internal review of a decision, and then you’re on your way.
There are two types of supports available via the program:
For more information about the NDIS Appeals Program, click here.
My Plan Manager recently interviewed Georgia, Community Engagement Facilitator at Mission Australia, to learn more about the free-of-charge service that’s available to people with disabilities and their family members/guardians.
Prior to her current role, Georgia spent time working as a LAC for Mission Australia, which runs local area coordination in South Australia and provides early childhood early intervention services nationally to participants aged under seven years.
Georgia: LACs are NDIS partners who work in the community to provide information, linkages and capacity building support to people with disabilities. They exist to provide information about what the NDIS is, how the community may be more inclusive and accessible, and what services – apart from the NDIS – are available to assist people with disabilities in their local communities.
This can involve a conversation about initial access to the NDIS, a first planning meeting with a participant, an implementation appointment where the LAC explains how to utiilise a plan, or explaining what a person’s review rights are if they're not happy with their funding or if their circumstances have significantly changed. Outside NDIS plan funding, LACs can provide support by explaining what mainstream and community services are available.
LAC services are completely free and available to all people with disabilities – including those who aren’t in the NDIS. To find your local LAC office, visit www.ndis.gov.au/contact/locations.
Georgia: If a person is thinking about applying for the NDIS and they are aged from seven to 64 years and require support, I recommend they (or their family member/guardian) first contact a LAC. If they’re under the age of seven, their first point of contact is an Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) Coordinator.
An important component of this first contact is to discover if the support the participant is requiring is specialised disability support requiring the NDIS or if the support they are seeking is available through another mainstream service (i.e. education, health or justice). Having this conversation is an important first step in determining if the NDIS is right for that person and, if so, how they can request access.
Georgia: First, the LAC will check that the person is aged under 65 years, because unfortunately a person older than that can’t apply for the NDIS. They will also talk about residency or citizenship, because those who access the Scheme must be living within Australia and an Australian citizen, or hold a permanent visa or a protected special category visa.
Next may be a conversation about what disabilities typically meet NDIS access criteria (available at here} and what evidence of disability is required in an access request (i.e. permanent and significant disability).
Georgia: The first option is a verbal access request, where the person, their family member or guardian calls the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) and says: ‘This is where I/they live, this is my/their age, this is what I/they believe my/their primary disability is, can I/they apply for the NDIS?’.
The NDIA will then add them to the system and send them a supporting evidence form, which requires confirmation from a treating professional. That could be a general practitioner (GP) or an allied health professional like an occupational therapist, speech pathologist or psychologist. Or it could be a specialist like a neurologist or psychiatrist.
This form needs to be completed and returned to the NDIA – and the catch is, there's a deadline to do this. LACs will advise a participant to really consider if they have all the information that’s required before submitting a verbal access request because, as you can imagine, it can be a very anxious process when someone has to gather that all together and get it to the NDIA. However, it can work really well for people who may have an extensive diagnostic assessment that provides a lot of information.
The second option to apply for the NDIS is to submit an access request form. It’s a whopping 28 pages, however it's very clear in what’s required. The first 12 pages are for the participant (or their family member or guardian) to complete. It asks questions like where they live, what their age and primary disability is, and if they have family members in the NDIS. The second part of the form is for their treating professional/s to complete.
The third option for accessing the NDIS is an evidence of psychosocial disability form – for people whose primary disability is within that psychosocial category (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar, anxiety or depression). A General Practitioner (GP), allied health professional or specialist can help to fill the form out. You can find more information at Mental health and the NDIS | NDIS.
Georgia: The LAC may talk to the participant about reapplying at a later stage, when/if perhaps their circumstances change or more evidence is available to them. There isn’t a cap on the number of times a person can request access to the NDIS.
If the participant doesn’t agree with the NDIS' decision, they can gain support from the LAC to explore what their review rights may be, understand more about what the process to appeal the 'access not met' decision is and/or how they might connect to a disability advocate for further advice or ongoing support with appeals.
Georgia: When a person’s access request is successful (a person older than seven years), their application is typically sent to their LAC partner. The LAC will then contact the participant to set up a first plan appointment. This is where the LAC talks to the person about what their support requirements are, what their circumstances are, and what their current goals are – or what they want to achieve from their NDIS plan. LACs can hold review appointments, where they look at what is and isn’t working and gather evidence for a plan review.
Georgia: Local area coordination is a free community service delivered by NDIS partners and support coordination/specialised support coordination is a specific funded support delivered by NDIS providers (both registered and non-registered). Both LACs and support coordinators support participants with the implementation of their NDIS plans.
You can find more information at support coordination | NDIS.
If a participant has initially planned with a LAC, and they have a plan approved that includes support coordination, the LAC will contact the participant and ask if they have chosen a support coordinator who they want to work with. If they don't have a chosen support coordinator, the LAC can support the participant in finding one. Once chosen, the LAC is then able to complete a 'request for service.
Georgia: A LAC will first discuss plan management in a planning conversation, once a participant has NDIS access. If the participant tells them they want to be plan managed, the LAC will talk to them about putting that forward to the NDIS, and rehash that conversation at the point of plan approval. This is where the LAC can also help people to find providers.
To find your local LAC office, visit www.ndis.gov.au/contact/locations.
Or, if you are looking for a plan manager to take the stress out of the NDIS, join My Plan Manager at myplanmanager.com.au/join.
My Plan Manager’s client portal is a better way to stay on top of your National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) plan’s budget, just like it is for Linda and Adrian.
Adrian said that when he first started helping his sister Linda to manage her life, he struggled because he not only had to learn the NDIS, but all of the agencies that help her.
He knew there would be invoices coming in every day.
“I thought there’s no way I can juggle both of those things. So when someone told me about My Plan Manager, I went Yes Please!”.
He realised that if someone could help him manage the invoices, it would help him learn more about the NDIS.
Which freed up his time to learn more about what they can provide to support his sister.
Watch the video below to see Linda and Adrian's story:
Adrian said that when he knew he had a portal that showed him how {Linda’s} budget was going, and ‘little doughnuts’ showing how much {she’d} spent in each area, it helped him monitor and track his sister’s NDIS plan budget, and see how things were going.
“I actually thought that one day I’ll take the invoices back {from My Plan Manager} and start managing {her budget}, but now that it’s managed so well, maybe not!”
The My Plan Manager client portal helps you or your carer stay on top of your NDIS plan’s budget, to get the most out of the NDIS.
Here's a quick video that shows how the portal works:
The My Plan Manager client portal is simple to use and offers real time information about your budgets and invoice payments.
It lets you view support categories and support areas:
You can even add support items, and check the details of all past and current claims and get copies of invoices:
And you can forward new invoices to My Plan Manager through the client portal simply by starting a new claim. As soon as they’re approved for payment you’ll see your budget updated:
The client portal is not only accessible but has the latest security features to protect your private information.
Sign up to My Plan Manager to unlock client portal access, remove time-consuming admin and have invoices processed seamlessly.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is absolutely life changing! But like anything that can change your life, making it happen can take a lot of effort.
No reward without hard work, right?
Fortunately, applying to access the NDIS has a relatively clear path to follow, and at My Plan Manager, we’ve got the map!
There are five elements you need to consider to see if you’re eligible to join the NDIS.
More information from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) is available here.
You’ll need to fill out an NDIS Access Request Form and submit it to the NDIA.
Having trouble filling it out? Help is available. You can:
You can also:
Your treating health professional (e.g., general practitioner) will need to fill out Section 2 of the Access Request Form.
If you have any existing reports or documentation, make copies and include them with your application too.
The NDIA will use the evidence you provide to determine if you’re eligible to access the Scheme. It will also be needed down the track when you discuss your needs in readiness for your first plan, and for your future plans.
Evidence needs to be recent and include reports and documentation that:
For more information about providing evidence, click here.
You’ll also need to provide proof of your age and residency. You can do this with your existing Centrelink record (if you’re a current Centrelink customer).
Alternatively, for proof of age, you can provide copies of your birth certificate, passport, driver’s licence or proof of age card.
To confirm your residency status, you can provide a copy of your birth certificate, Australian citizenship or naturalisation certificate, or a foreign passport or travel document which includes a valid Australian permanent visa or a protected Special Category visa.
Now, you wait – and the wait times can vary. However, you should get an answer about your access request within 21 business days (around a calendar month).
If you haven’t heard back in that timeframe, make sure you follow up with the NDIA directly, or if you received help from a local NDIS office or NDIS partner, get in touch with their team to check in on the progress of your application.
If your access request is successful, the NDIA will contact you to set up a planning meeting to discuss your needs.
Read our tips for preparing for a planning meeting here.
Plan managers (like My Plan Manager) are NDIS-registered providers who support participants to manage the funding in their NDIS plans. That means the NDIS pays for our services and we work with you to:
And best of all, we do all of this at no cost to you! Plus, by choosing to have your funding plan managed, you can access a wider range of providers – NDIS-registered and unregistered – and we’ll handle the rest.
Once your chosen providers are locked in, you can sit back, and we’ll take care of your finances and make sure you’re paying exactly what you should be for every support and service you receive.
Think plan management is right for you? There’s no cost involved – all you need to do is ask!
If your NDIS access request is successful, you just need to let the NDIA know you’d like a plan manager to support you – and which plan manager you want to work with – and your choice will be recorded on your plan.
You’re not the first person to apply for the NDIS, and you won’t be the last. There’s power in community… and that’s why we created Kinora.
An online community, Kinora helps people with disability and their supporters to connect with peers, NDIS experts, disability sector professionals, and service providers, assisting them to build lasting connections with the people and businesses who can support them throughout their lives.
Whether it’s a question about the NDIS, a problem you’re trying to work through, people you’re trying to connect with, or a service you’re wanting to locate or market, Kinora – a community of solutions – will be right by your side.
To learn more about the benefits Kinora offers, click here.
If you’ve received a response to your request for access to the NDIS and it wasn’t the outcome you were hoping for, don’t be disheartened.
Whether your application was rejected outright or you’re unhappy with how it was handled, you can ask to have the decision reviewed. For more information, click here.
Your family members, friends or a disability advocate can also support you. For more information about how a disability advocate can help you to exercise your rights, click here. If you need help connecting with a disability advocate, try asking the community in Kinora.
You can also email [email protected] or contact the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission if you’re concerned about an NDIA decision or process.
You may be aware of some of the upsides of plan management – like being able to access more providers and having someone on hand to take time consuming paperwork off your plate.
But at My Plan Manager, there’s a lot more to what we do – and that translates into a whole lot more that our clients and their supports can expect from us!
If you have questions about plan management and exactly what we can do to make life a little less complicated, give us a call on 1800 861 272 from 8am-6pm (SA time), Monday to Friday. If email suits you better, you can contact us via [email protected].
The capacity building budget contains nine support categories that all are aimed helping you to be more independent and live your best life. The other two types types of budgets are core supports and capital supports, and they cover expenses related to your day-to-day care and equipment or modifications. Together, these three supports budgets help you work toward the goals in your NDIS plan.
The NDIA will assess your needs during your planning meeting or plan review meeting to determine what capacity building supports might be considered reasonable and necessary. Your planner or LAC will use your short- and long-term goals listed in your NDIS plan to fund supports to achieve those goals and live a more independent life. For example, if one of your goals is to develop your skills in cooking and healthy diets, your plan might include the 'increased social and community support' budget to fund cooking classes.
Your goals are very important in determining what you can purchase out of your capacity building support budget as it’s not flexible like the core support budget. You can find out more about NDIS plans in NDIS category confusion and NDIS Dictionary: Breaking down the jargon.
Read on to learn about the categories that make up the capacity building support budget.
You can claim support coordination services from this budget. Support coordinators help you put your plan in action and organise your supports. They can help you to build connections with the community and broader systems of support; develop and design support options to help you work towards your goals; and work with you to prepare for review and report on what you’ve achieved. Read our tips for choosing a support coordinator that's right for you.
This funding is for help for you to find suitable accommodation to live more independently, and could cover someone to assist you with inspecting properties or negotiating your contract. Supports may including assistance with applying for a rental property, meeting tenancy obligations and ensuring the home is appropriate for your needs.
This is to pay for support to help you build your skills in accessing the community. This may include funding a mentor or therapist to assist with learning skills for independence in the community.
This category of funding can be used to pay for tuition fees, art classes, sports coaching and similar activities that build skills and independence. You can use this category to pay for camps, classes and vacation activities that have capacity-building components. Activity-based transport is also included.
Funding to support you to find a job and have assistance in your work. This budget can pay for a support worker to assist you at your job or helping you to find a job that’s right for you, including on-the-job training to assist you manage the demands of the job.
Other options may include life and work coaches, private recruitment specialists, career counsellors and employment mentors.
Supports to help build your skills to connect and build relationships in your community. This could include funding to pay for someone to help you build your social skills or behavioural therapy services.
Services that improve your health and wellbeing, like a personal trainer, exercise physiologist or dietitian to improve your skills in maintain your own health and wellbeing.
Access to services that will help you to transition from school to further education. This budget could fund a support worker to help you to go to university or TAFE.
This budget pays for your plan manager. All you need to do have funding for a plan manager is request it in your planning or review meeting. Your plan manager will take care of all the financial administrative work from your NDIS plan and if they are a good plan manager, they will have handy technology and a team of NDIS experts to help you get the most out of your NDIS plan. Find out more about what a plan manager does.
Funding to cover your therapies and other programs to build your capacity to reduce the impact of your disability. This could be a physiotherapist, speech pathology, occupational therapy or any other therapy that assists you to become more independent with your daily living tasks.
The NDIA has recently announced that the three support budgets (core, capital and capacity building) will eventually be replaced with only two types: fixed and flexible. These changes will be phased in from the later half of 2021, as current plans end and new plans start. So if you are due for a new plan, expect it to be in the new format of fixed and flexible. Read more in Coach Amelia's explanation on Kinora.
To find out more about the other types of funding or other NDIS lingo check out NDIS Category Confusion or NDIS Dictionary: Breaking down the jargon.
If you have any queries about how to use your funding please contact us via phone or email and we will be more than happy to assist.
This budget covers higher-cost assistive technology items and equipment, home or vehicle modifications, and other one-off purchases. The other two types types of supports budgets are core supports and capacity building supports, and they cover expenses related to your day-to-day care and building skills and capability. Together, these three supports budgets help you work toward the goals in your NDIS plan.
Capital support has two budget categories: assistive technology and home modifications. Some assistive technology and equipment - low-cost and low-risk items - are claimed out of the consumables category in the core budget, which is flexible. The capital supports budget is not flexible and usually will only fund specific pieces of equipment or modifications which were discussed in your planning meeting and have been approved in your plan by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).
This category covers specialised technology or equipment to assist to live more independently, like:
This category covers funding for structural modifications to be made to your home to make it easier for to you live your everyday life, where your disability creates barriers. This may include modifications to your kitchen, entrance or bathroom equipment.
This budget will include funding to pay for the assessment, delivery and set up, adjustment and maintenance costs associated with your home modification project.
This budget will also cover specialist accommodation for participants with very high needs who need specialist housing for their delivery of services.
The NDIA is usually very specific in how to spend your funding for assistive technology or home modification. In your planning meeting your planner or LAC will discuss with you how you can purchase items out of the budget and where you could purchase these from. If capital supports are needed, the LAC or planner will usually add the capital supports category to the plan pending a quote. This means you need to get a quote from provider (such as the store where you will buy your assistive technology, or the builder who will do your home modification). You then need to send the quote to the NDIA for approval before the funding can be made available to purchase the equipment, or start the project. Funding for repairs and maintenance may also be included.
The NDIA has recently announced that the three support budgets (core, capital and capacity building) will eventually be replaced with only two types: fixed and flexible. These changes will be phased in from the later half of 2021, as current plans end and new plans start. So if you are due for a new plan, expect it to be in the new format of fixed and flexible. Read more in Coach Amelia's explanation on Kinora.
To find out more about the other types of funding or other NDIS lingo check out NDIS Category Confusion or NDIS Dictionary: Breaking down the jargon.
If you have any queries about how to use your funding please contact us via phone or email and we will be more than happy to assist.
Service agreements sound complicated but really their purpose is quite simple: to put in writing the details of the service you will receive, an agreed payment amount and any other responsibilities you might expect of each other.
Service agreements are mandatory for registered providers, so you probably already have a few in place. If you have a plan manager, you are able to use non-registered providers. Service agreements are optional for non-registered providers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask your provider to have one in place.
When you use your National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funding to pay a provider for supports, you are entering into an arrangement with each other. So this agreement already exists, it’s just not written down, which can mean that the details of your agreement can be open to interpretation. A service agreement puts everything in writing so both parties have a clear understanding of what supports will take place and how they will be delivered.
Some providers may be open to negotiating the cost of their services and a service agreement is a good way of putting down in writing the agreed cost for your supports.
Usually, a service agreement will cover:
A service agreement is in place to protect both you and your provider, so the terms need to be fair and understandable by all parties involved.
Service agreements can be particularly useful for services that are tailored or personalised to your needs, for example, support work. You can use the agreement to be specific about what you expect about things like, the tasks you need help with, what happens if you or the support worker need to cancel or who is responsible for covering travel costs and in what circumstances. A service agreement for cleaning might include things like who provides the cleaning products, whether there are any off-limits areas you don’t want cleaned, or what happens if either you or the cleaner need to cancel the booking. The service agreement is yours as well as the provider’s, so you can ask to negotiate or add in terms that are important to you. Some providers will be more flexible about this than others.
It’s important that you understand what you are agreeing to, and providers should be considerate about giving you the information in the language or way of communicating that you understand. It’s your right to ask questions about any part of the service agreement before you sign.
A family member, trusted friend or support worker can help you understand the terms of the agreement, but without formal authorisation, they can’t sign the agreement.
Remember, you don’t have to sign a service agreement if you’re not comfortable with what it says. If you want help understanding a service agreement or you’re uncomfortable with the terms of a service agreement, you can ask for help from a disability advocacy group or support coordinator or local area coordinator (LAC), or contact the National Disability Insurance Agency or NDIS Commission. No service agreement can override the NDIS Code of Conduct.
A service agreement must be made between the client and the provider. The agreement can only be signed by the client themselves or a decision maker with the power to sign on their behalf. This might be a parent or other plan nominee, guardian, administrator (or financial manager) or an attorney if the terms of the agreement are within their legal authority.
It’s also a good idea to keep a copy of the signed agreement for future reference.
Remember, you have the choice and control over your supports and how your provider’s services will help meet your needs. If you’re looking to reassess your needs or search for a new provider we have an article about this very topic.
A support coordinator can play an important part in your National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) journey, and that's because their role is to help you to make the best use of the supports in your NDIS plan.
Whether you've got access to plenty or few in your area, you'll want to know how to choose the right support coordinator for you and your circumstances.
Let's dive in to how funding for support coordination works, what makes a good support coordinator, and where you can find one.
Not every participant will benefit from or need to work with a support coordinator. In determining whether to include funding for a support coordinator in your plan, the NDIS will consider if support coordination is reasonable and necessary for you to pursue your goals, as well as the support you receive from family, friends, and other community and government services.
If funding for a support coordinator is approved, you'll find it in your Capacity Building Supports budget.
There are three levels of support coordination that can be included in your plan:
Support coordinators need to be NDIS-registered providers, so they can’t charge more for the type of support coordination included in your plan than the rate specified in the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits.
The NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits lists the maximum amount a provider can charge you for a service under the Scheme. If you’re able to negotiate a cheaper price with your provider, you can - and this means you'll be able to get more out of your allocated funding.
Everyone has different needs and requires different levels of support, so finding a support coordinator who works well with you is an entirely personal decision. Here are a few key questions to ask when choosing a support coordinator:
At My Plan Manager, we like to keep the choice and control firmly in the hands of our clients, so we don’t recommend providers directly. But we can certainly help you find the information you need to make you own decisions about providers.
Try looking at our list of the top NDIS provider search directories to help you find service providers in your local area. Or, check out our free online community, Kinora, where you can source wisdom from the crowd by asking for recommendations.
Some people want to manage their plan funding entirely on their own while others prefer to have the admin taken care of through plan management.
While there are a few different ways to manage your NDIS plan, one option you may not know about is combination management. Combination is essentially accessing the great features of plan management while also self-managing the parts of your plan you want to have more control of.
In case you didn’t already know, there are 4 ways to manage your NDIS plan; agency managed, self-managed, plan managed and combination. We have more information on the first three options here. Let’s take a look at combination management and how it might work for you.
When you set up your NDIS plan, you can choose how you would like to manage your funding. With a combination style of management, you can use a different management style for different budget categories or parts of budget categories. For example, there may be some specific budget categories you want to manage yourself, so you could choose to self-manage those specific categories. But as self-management is quite a lot of work, you may choose to have the rest of your plan managed by a plan manager, to reduce the amount of time and effort you spend on self-management.
Depending on your personal circumstances, it might be easier to have your plan with one management style, but for some people the ease of choosing which budget categories they want more control over can make all the difference.
For example, the flexibility of having different budget categories means you could have your Consumables budget self-managed, so you have the flexibility to personally make claims through the NDIS portal. At the same time, you could have the rest of your budget categories plan managed so you don’t have to do the admin for your whole plan.
Getting combination management in your plan is easy! You just need to ask your NDIS planner or Local Area Coordinator (LAC) at your planning meeting or review meeting that you would like to use a combination of funding management types for your plan. You then need to choose the type for each support budget category or part of a budget category. If you elect to have any of the budget categories plan managed your planner will allocate funding to pay for your plan manager.
During COVID-19 the NDIS has become more flexible with ‘management only’ changes to your current plan without the need for a full plan review. If you would like to make changes to how your plan is currently managed you will need to reach out to your Early Childhood Early Intervention Coordinator, LAC or National Disability Insurance Scheme Planner or call the NDIS directly on 1800 800 110 and select option 5 to discuss your personal circumstances.
If you're interested in finding out more about combination management, contact us by phone or email to chat about how My Plan Manager can help make your life easier by managing all or part of your plan.
