There’s no doubt about it; we live in expensive times!
With the cost of living going up, and inflation and interest rates showing only early signs of coming down, we know every dollar counts in households across Australia.
That’s why it’s so important to recoup out-of-pocket expenses wherever possible, so you can keep your money where it belongs: in your wallet.
Cue the My Plan Manager crash course in National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) reimbursements.
An NDIS reimbursement happens when you use your own money to pay for a support or service that’s been approved by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), and then you submit a claim to be paid back for it (as long as your NDIS plan has funding available for it).
Maybe you’ve purchased a non-slip bathmat or a portable ramp, or maybe you have a transport budget, but you’ve paid a taxi fare with the cash in your pocket. Or perhaps you’ve purchased a walking stick to help you to get around more independently. Whatever it is, if it’s been approved by the NDIA and you have the funding available in your plan, you can send a claim to us, and we’ll get the ball rolling.
There are a few tips and tricks for getting reimbursements right, so we recommend you keep reading.
Making a claim is easy – just follow two simple steps:
#1. Make sure you get a receipt or tax invoice
To ensure compliance with the NDIA – and to give us everything we need to process your claim and submit it to the Agency for review – you’ll need to provide a receipt or a tax invoice that shows you’ve paid in full. The Australian Business Number (ABN) of the business you paid needs to be included on the invoice too.
#2. Submit your claim
There are two simple ways to submit a claim for reimbursement, but the one we recommend (because it’s quicker and keeps you updated as your claim progresses) is to use our client portal.
Available via web and app, My Plan Manager’s client portal is easy to use, it offers stacks of features to help you take control of your funding, and it makes submitting claims a breeze. Best of all, once you put your claim into the portal, it files it straight away, so you can see the payment status whenever you want to.
Explore everything our client portal has to offer here – or if you already use it, then jump online, log in, and refresh your knowledge so you can submit and monitor the progress of your claims with ease.
If easy-to-use tech isn’t your thing, you can submit a reimbursement by email instead. Find out how to do that here.
Your NDIS plan includes information about the supports you can use and the funding that’s available for you to spend. Every person is different, and so are their plans, so make sure to check yours before you start spending.
If you’re a My Plan Manager client and you want to make sure your reimbursement requests aren’t rejected, we recommend you check with our NDIS experts first before making a purchase. Their advice will give you the confidence to use your funding correctly so you can access the supports you need.
You can also ask your NDIA contact for advice or visit the NDIS website for information about the types of supports you can buy with your NDIS funding.
Legislation has tightened up spending in the Scheme, and participants can only use their funding to purchase approved supports. There are also rules about what funding can’t be used for. You can find out more about what’s approved and what’s not by clicking here.
Once we receive a compliant claim (which means that everything we need to review and send to the NDIA is there), we check that it meets the Agency’s rules and requirements, and then we submit it. That usually takes less than 48 hours.
Like us, the NDIA is focused on protecting you and your funding, so Agency staff may need up to 10 working days to review a claim, but in many cases it’s a lot quicker than that.
Once that’s done – and assuming everything is correct, and the claim is approved – the NDIA releases the fund to us, and we pay the claim.
You can find out more about the process here.
Note: If you’re accessing ongoing supports, it’s best to have your provider invoice us directly. That way, you’re not out of pocket and we’ll be able to process the claim faster!
If you have questions or need a little support before you submit a claim, just give us a call on 1800 861 272. We’re on hand to assist from 8am-5.30pm (SA time), Monday to Friday.
