We know swift payment of invoices is essential for providers’ peace of mind – and vitally important for keeping client supports in place! However, there are often delays in processing payments because critical information is left off a claim.
That’s why Kinora, My Plan Manager’s community of solutions, has launched a new channel to help you get paid quickly.
Introducing the Best Ways to Get Paid Quickly channel
Inside this private, provider-exclusive channel, My Plan Manager serves up time-reducing tips and tricks to help you get paid faster, a little like our invoice checklist.
To get paid faster and to have your questions answered:
You can also reply or comment in a topic that’s already there.
My Plan Manager is available to respond to your questions from 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday.
Are you a new NDIS provider?
Then don’t miss NDIS 101 for New Providers – a Q&A event that’s running on Kinora from 3pm-4pm (AEST) this Thursday (13 October).
We’ll cover the basics that all providers should know, including best practice fundamentals for engaging with participants and getting paid.
The great news is, it’s completely free and you don’t need to register. To join this event, log in to Kinora, click this link to post your questions, and we'll answer them live.
The updated Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits have introduced new line items for specific allied health and therapy supports. This means some allied health and therapy supports previously listed as ‘other therapy’ now have their own line items.
If you haven’t already, now is a great time to check you’re still making claims correctly. You can do this by:
Remember, any service agreements with expired line items should be updated and sent to My Plan Manager so we can ensure our mutual clients have the budgets locked away for the services they need.
Previously, pricing for support work was aligned to three levels of complexity. The new Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits include only two - a standard price, and a single ‘high intensity’ price. Providers previously claiming for level one, two and three supports must ensure their claiming practices are aligned with the new Pricing Arrangements.
Including a line item on your invoice isn’t a National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) requirement, but doing so can help My Plan Manager to process your claim quicker so payment reaches you sooner.
If you’re registered with a professional organisation, you’re also encouraged to include your registration information (organisation name and registration number) with your claim.
If you need a question answered or a second opinion, you can email us at enquiries@myplanmanager.com.au or call us on 1800 861 272 from 8am-5.30pm (ACDT) Monday to Friday.
Updated 18 February 2025
Twelve years ago, while teaching a class of 30 young children - three of them with cognitive and physical disabilities - I became a statistic. I was a burned out teacher who left the profession within five years of training.
In my first year of teaching, I’d been encouraged to take my compassion to the classroom every day. Hindsight is a great thing, and what I now know is that what I actually took each day was my endless supply of empathy, and it was exhausting. This experience started me on a long road to recovery and discovery.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), burnout is chronic workplace stress not managed effectively over time. But in 2010, there was more to it for me, and it took me nearly four years of research to realise I had really been suffering from empathy fatigue.
By 2014, when I became a carer to both my parents, I knew I needed to avoid this thing if I was to be a good carer and a well carer, as well as a great partner, friend and business owner.
Empathy fatigue differs from burnout and has a unique, negative effect. So, who is vulnerable to it? Well, anyone in roles in ongoing human service and, right now, anyone who chooses to watch world news!
Back in 2010, my symptoms included poor sleep, impaired judgment, feelings of isolation and - over time - a loss of self worth. Empathy fatigue can come on much more rapidly than burnout, but if recognised and managed well, there is a faster recovery, or even a chance to avoid it all together.
In 1995, Charles Figley – now the the Tulane University Paul Henry Kurzweg, MD Distinguished Chair in Disaster Mental Health - wrote: “Humans have both the gift and the curse of extreme empathy. We feel others' feelings, we experience their fears, eventually losing our optimism, humour, and hope. We aren’t sick, but we aren’t ourselves.”.
And psychiatrist Frank Ochberg, a pioneer in trauma science, wrote: “Over time our ability to feel and care for others becomes eroded through overuse of empathy.”. Recognise yourself or anyone else here?
I like to describe empathy fatigue as the emotional residue from exposure to those who are suffering, and from us witnessing their stress. Were you once motivated and engaged, productive and dedicated? Now you’re overworked and exhausted?
Perhaps you spend your day regulating the feelings of others and then, over time, have zero tolerance for colleagues, friends or family, and the little things like the missing loo roll become unresolvable!
Perhaps you’re too busy attuning to others and not yourself? This was me. I’d heard the term ‘you can’t pour from an empty cup’, so I started to refill my cup at the weekends or during my annual leave. But we need more - I needed more.
After years of research and trying things out, and in particular during the past couple of years where we’ve all suffered in some way ourselves, I realised I needed to understand and commit to filling my cup while I pour as well.
Empathy is all about resonance. If you resonate, your body goes with you. Think of it like a mirror. It’s the ability to share someone’s feelings or experiences. We can literally catch their emotions. We feel with them, and we feel their distress. We use that empathy to connect. And this is normal and human.
Unfortunately, our fight, flight or freeze response in our brain is activated by actual or perceived threats. So, through working with our clients or just watching the news, even though it’s not happening to us, our brain doesn’t know the difference and it goes into protection response and survival mode straight away. So, we need to cultivate our ability to recognise others' distress without it becoming our own experience. How? By moving through empathy and turning it into compassion, both for others and ourselves. And the magical part is, we can’t fatigue from compassion.
Compassion allows us to feel connected and good within ourselves, not drained. It’s a human quality anchored in the recognition of, and desire to relieve, hardship. This is about feeling for others, not with them. See the subtle yet powerful difference? This state is much more energising and positive. It allows us to still be with the person without feeling overwhelmed, so it’s more sustainable too. If you can care for yourself, this increases your capacity to safely support others, so it’s a win/win!
To connect with peers and discuss empathy fatigue or any other topic of interest to disability service providers, why not jump on to Kinora, an online community created by My Plan Manager.
Take five deep breaths: lengthening your out breath regulates your fight, flight or freeze response and switches on your relaxation response.
Anchors: feel your feet on the floor or turn your head slowly to the left and then the right and spot a few colours or shapes (this tells your brain it is safe), or find three things you can see, two things you can feel, and one thing you can hear.
Kindness: give yourself some kind words (yes, yourself), and think about what you might say to a friend in your situation (e.g., ‘this is hard right now’ or ‘this is painful for you’). At the same time, hold your own hand/shoulder/heart tenderly and kindly.
Endorphins: these are our natural reward system and our painkiller. You can increase your endorphins by exercising, spending time with friends, receiving a massage, engaging in meditation, using aromatherapy and, if you have some at hand, eating dark chocolate.
Annie Harvey is an author, TEDx and keynote speaker, and wellbeing educator. She is also a laughter yoga trainer. You can find her book here.
Supported decision making is when one person (a supporter) gives another person (a decision maker) the tools and support they need to participate in decision making about their own life. It isn’t the same as having a person make decisions on behalf of another person.
Supported decision making can help the decision maker to build their skills in decision making and develop the confidence to decide more for themselves in the future.
A person who might need support with making decisions is someone whose ability to make independent decisions is affected. Their ability to make decisions could be affected by:
Sometimes people with disability haven’t had the chance to make their own decisions or to gain experience in decision making. Supported decision making is a way of providing a person with disability the opportunity to learn more about decision making and to exercise choice and control in their lives.
Anyone can be a support person if they have been chosen by the decision maker. A support person could be a trusted family member, friend, service provider or advocate.
A decision maker can have one or more supporters - and sometimes, a team of supporters - to assist them with decision making.
A good supporter, or team of supporters, will have respect for the decision maker, value that person’s independence and dignity, and know that person’s goals, values and preferences.
Supported decision making begins with the decision maker, their chosen supporter/s and a decision. The supporter/s will support the decision maker to:
There are many supported decision making resources available for decision makers and supporters. Here are some free, helpful ones we have found:
Unlike local area coordination, support coordination is funded through individual participants’ NDIS plans, and not every participant has the relevant funding included. Typically, participants with more complex NDIS plans will have access to the service.
When Emma Lloyd started working with Alex* – her first client – he had a $20,000 NDIS plan. He and his family couldn’t lead a functional life, and they were living in very challenging circumstances, without the right services and supports to assist Alex with daily life.
Today, Alex has access to 3:1 Supported Independent Living (SIL) supports and a wide range of allied health and psychological supports. He has also been approved for Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA), which has allowed his family to step away from their roles as his carers, and back into family life as Alex’s parents and siblings.
I first met Alex when I was a support worker, and he had a $30,000 NDIS plan that was then dropped to $20,000. I linked him up to a support coordinator, who was able to get his budget up a little, but it wasn’t enough. A short time later, I started working as a support coordinator and Alex was my first client.
To get him to the level that he is at today I had to work closely with Alex and his family and assemble a team of allied health professionals that could provide the services he needed. I supported his family when they decided to push for help from their local Member of Parliament, and I had to get very comprehensive evidence from his providers to clearly show the NDIS why Alex needed more funding.
Next, I engaged with the Exceptional Needs Unit of South Australia’s Department of Human Services, which helps to support individuals who have multiple, complex needs and risk factors, as well as their families. I also connected with mainstream specialists and forensic psychology services to demonstrate the urgent need for increased funding.
To further support Alex’s case, I used the NDIS’ Exceptionally Complex Needs Program to make sure there was a really strong clinical oversight of the work I was undertaking, because it was so complex. This gave me access to knowledge and advice whenever I needed help or a second opinion from subject matter experts skilled in managing crisis situations.
I lodged several requests for S100s (Reviews of a Reviewable Decision) – I had to request additional funding multiple times to achieve the desired outcome.
I gathered all the evidence and data that Alex needed to demonstrate his needs and establish a case for increased funding – assessments, more support letters and better summaries from allied health providers. Then, together with Alex and his family, we lodged a change of circumstance to get his plan adjusted.
The large multidisciplinary team I put together required a huge amount of organisation and coordination to make sure everyone was on the same page and working towards the same goal. We had a few knockbacks, and we had to be quite determined and keep pushing through.
At the end of it, we were able to secure $1.5 million of funding, which meant Alex could move out of his family home.
Today, Alex’s NDIS supports mean he and his family have a much better relationship than they did when they were underfunded and all living together. Helping them to reach that point was critical and it meant Alex could benefit from a stable support network that included informal supports. It also ensured positive family relationships were restored and maintained.
The biggest takeaway from this win was the importance of being able to paint the full picture of a client’s disabilities and circumstances to the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).
The reality is, you can provide all the evidence in the world, and the NDIA may still come back and say it is not going to fund a particular support. You have to be persistent and not just accept it, but say ‘Ok, what else do we need to do to get this over the line?’.
Disclaimer: In the interests of confidentiality, we’ve omitted specific details of the participant referred to in this article, and his family.
Emma’s business, One Tribe Australia, is a multidisciplinary provider operating across country and offering everything from support coordination to social work, disability support work to complex coaching. You can learn more about her team here.
Or, read ‘The top five questions participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) ask, and why’, where Emma tells us what her clients most commonly ask her.
We know most support coordinators are time poor, and waiting in a lengthy phone queue to speak to someone at the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) is often just not possible.
That’s where My Plan Manager comes in.
The support coordinators who work with our clients and with us have access to a team of experts to answer their NDIS questions and unpack the nuances of the Scheme.
At My Plan Manager, we believe in building strong and enduring relationships with our clients and those who support them – particularly their support coordinators. There’s a lot of information that support coordinators are expected to know about the NDIS, so we make sure we’re on hand to guide them through any funding questions they may have.
Here’s three ways we can help:
We were one of Australia’s first plan managers, and today we are the largest. We do much more than simply paying the bills. We have a dedicated team of NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits experts to help you with things like:
For example, did you know that assistive technology that’s valued at less than $1500 can often come out of a client’s Core Supports budget, rather than from Capital Supports? At My Plan Manager, we've seen so many invoices, and we can advise you what the NDIS will and won't fund and where to claim it from.
To speak to our NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits experts, email us at enquiries@myplanmanager.com.au or call us on 1800 861 272 from 8am-5.30pm (ACDT) Monday to Friday.
Our client portal and app make it easy to see if your clients have enough funding for the supports they need and want. Sufficient funding is a common concern for many clients because they depend on it and don’t want to see it dry up. Whenever a client asks if they have sufficient funding in their plan for a particular support, a support coordinator may look at:
The reality is, even after doing all of the above, it can be difficult to see what a client has spent and what’s left in their budget. That’s where My Plan Manager’s client portal and app come in handy.
Through the client portal (which can be downloaded as an app too!) you can see a client’s budget snapshot and easily see what funding they have, where they can spend it, and how long it will last. Having great technology that lets you access client information quickly and conveniently is incredibly important, and one of the benefits of working with us.
Clients can provide their support coordinators (and others) with access to their information through the My Plan Manager client portal. To do this, they simply need to complete this consent form. They can fill the form out on a computer or print it out and complete it in writing. Once completed, they can email it to enquiries@myplanmanager.com.au.
We have a dedicated team of Community Engagement Managers covering the nation - a local support to assist you and your clients in several ways - including:
If you don’t have the details of your dedicated Community Engagement Manager, email us at enquiries@myplanmanager.com.au and we’ll point you in the right direction.
For clients, we have a dedicated Relationships team, with expert advisers they can call any time for advice and support with matters like managing their NDIS budget to maximise their plan, NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits, current NDIS regulations, and the types of services and supports they can access with their funding.
We’ve organised our teams around specific states, territories and localities too, ensuring our clients and their support coordinators have consistent contact with fewer people who truly understand their needs.
If you have questions or want a second opinion about the funding in an NDIS plan, email us at enquiries@myplanmanager.com.au or call us on 1800 861 272 from 8am-5.30pm (ACDT) Monday to Friday.
Updated 18 February 2025
There are a lot of competing priorities when working as a LAC – you’re attending NDIS planning meetings, writing up draft plans, supporting people to use their approved plans, and answering questions. You’re also attending community events and working towards National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) expectations, like meeting a quota for the number of draft plans written.
As a LAC, I often felt like I didn’t have time to support people in the way I would have liked to. There’s a lot going on, and you must choose and prioritise what you will do every day.
Tip: I always made sure I had a to-do list that set out my tasks and what to prioritise – like making sure I was in contact with vulnerable people and writing draft plans for the clients whose plans were set to expire first. It felt great when I could tick off tasks and have a record of what I’d done.
As a LAC, you have a high list of priorities and a large caseload of clients and working with them was the part I loved most. But I did take on people’s situations and the fact that some of them were very much in need of NDIS support – it can be hard to switch off and stop worrying about them and this can lead to burnout.
Tip: I put boundaries in place, like not being available to clients 24/7. I found that looking after my mental health outside of work and doing things like going out for walks in nature, or swimming laps helped me to switch off, and that was really important. It prepared me better for the challenges at work.
Often plans aren’t written in a language that people can easily understand. They can look at their plans and think ‘this doesn’t tell me what supports I can access’, especially if it’s their first NDIS plan. This can be confusing and overwhelming.
Tip: If a person couldn’t understand their plan, I’d take copy and make notes in it, like what they could access under each budget. If they wanted more detail, I’d send them an email explaining further. Then, I’d continue to work with them, and have several conversations to help them understand what was in their plan and how to use it. The NDIS has some great booklets now that explain this in depth (Booklets 1, 2 and 3 in this link: Booklets and factsheets | NDIS).
I used get asked a lot of questions like ‘how long will it take the NDIA to approve my plan?’, and there is no answer. It varies for everybody - some plans get approved quickly and others take time. Then there are things like assistive technology requests. Recently a lot of people’s NDIS plans expired before they could have their review meeting. When this happens, a plan rolls over, but it’s not ideal. It can take a long time for the NDIA to make a decision, and this is something that would constantly happen when I was a LAC.
Tip: I always erred on the side of caution when speaking with people (to manage their expectations) and supported them to enquire about updates from the NDIA. If a support they really needed wasn’t coming back to them, we would investigate mainstream or community supports, and any creative ways they could use their budget - like using a therapy assistant instead of a qualified therapist and having shorter therapy sessions.
Having difficult conversations with clients when their budgets were reduced, or when the NDIA declined items they’d requested was very common.
Tip: You have to be understanding and supportive of the person you’re speaking to. You can support them by letting them know about the review process in place, and helping them gather additional evidence, then looking at using their budget more creatively and exploring mainstream supports they could access, like a general practitioner care plan.
A question that frequently pops up from clients is ‘I’m in the NDIS – what's next for me?'. Here’s a simple answer.
Often after a person is approved to access the NDIS, they will receive an invitation to a pre-planning meeting with a Local Area Coordinator – or LAC. LACs help many people with disability to develop, review and implement their plans.
During the 90-minute catch-up, the LAC will gather information and work with the person to determine what to put in their plan.
Their first plan will set the tone for the rest of their journey in the NDIS and how their budgets are structured in the following years. That’s why it’s important to prepare for this meeting.
If a person receives an invitation to a pre-planning meeting with a LAC, they will also receive information to help them prepare to prepare for the meeting. When preparing, they may want to consider:
Making a list of things a person wants to potentially claim for from the NDIS can help the LAC in their assessment. When writing this list, they may want to ask ‘are the items on it reasonable and necessary?’. If the answer is yes, they can keep them in.
Blocking time out to answer these questions can help people to prepare and achieve better plan outcomes. They can ask their current providers to help them, or even to join in their pre-planning meeting.
For example, one of our Kinora community members has a daughter who is on the autism spectrum. The clinical psychologist who diagnosed her daughter specialises in supporting children on the spectrum and, by joining the pre-planning call, they were able to suggest many inclusions and goals that our community member may not otherwise have thought of.
If your client has a question about applying for the NDIS or the pre-planning phase, they can log on to Kinora to connect with a coach, who can point them in the right direction.
On Kinora, people with disability can:
For service providers, Kinora can open your services up to new clients. This can be done through:
To learn more about Kinora, and the value it can add to your business, click here.
However, often delays in processing invoices occur because critical information is left off the claim.
To avoid payment delays, be sure to include the following information on every invoice you submit to My Plan Manager:
Invoices should be submitted to us after each service has been provided. My Plan Manager’s preferred way to receive invoices is through the My Plan Manager provider portal, where it is quick and simple to upload a client invoice.
Submitting invoices through the My Plan Manager provider portal offers the added convenience of being able to view invoices and check payment status. You can access the My Plan Manager provider portal at here.
Alternatively, you can find more information about the provider portal here.
You can also email invoices directly to us at accounts@myplanmanager.com.au. Our preferred file type for all provider documentation, including invoices, is PDF.
Once we receive your invoice, My Plan Manager will claim from the National Disability Insurance Agency and payment will be made to your nominated bank account within three business days.
