10388 – Individial submission

Instead of Participants having to call the 1800 number for the National Contact Centre, leave a message for the region to call the participant back and participant receives a private number and is unable to talk at the time the NDIA region calls there should be a direct landline number and direct mobile number that if the participant misses a call and is not able to talk at the time the NDIA region calls the participant can call the NDIA back straight away and then be transferred to the NDIA planner, Senior Planner, Senior Team Leader, Team Leader or anyone else straight away and be able to talk to the person to follow up on what they need to follow up about whether it is about orthotics being funded and if any further information is required, whether it is a scheduled plan review, a review of a reviewable decision or something else. At the moment when participants call the 1800 number anyone from the contact centre answers the phone and questions participants ask are not answered they are advised that the person can send an email and request through to the region and ask the region to give you a call back. The participant provides their contact details and the region takes a long time to call participants back no matter how long participants wait even when participants have been waiting weeks for an answer the region still does not call back within a reasonable timeframe instead of participants being called back within 14 days from the planning meeting or 14 days from the date participants call the region keeps participants waiting, waiting,waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting and waiting a long time. There needs to be direct landline numbers and mobile numbers to make it easier for participants to contact their NDIA region without participants having to ring the 1800 number and the person at the contact centre who answers the call having to send another email and request through to the region to call participants back. At the moment the only number is the 1800 number and participants having to wait to receive a call back from the region while if there were direct landline numbers and mobile numbers and participants miss a call at the time the region rings the participants will be able to see the number show up on their phone and ring their NDIA region back straight away. Participants do not have time to waiting for calls to be returned and to ring a 1800 number that is a private number participants only answer calls if it is a direct number that is showing on their phone whether it shows on their landline phone or mobile phone or both landline phone and mobile phone as with a private number you don’t know who is calling and participants will not answer private numbers if they can’t see the number and know who is calling them. It would be better to have a direct phone number to make it easier for participants to know who is calling them then participants when they look at the number will know it is their local NDIA region calling them. The NDIA does not ask participants what is a good time to ring them and ring when it is convenient for the person at the region to contact participants the person from the region calling the participant may choose a time and day that suits them and think this is a good time to ring the participants the participants could be busy at that time and when they ring the 1800 number back the person answering the phone cannot transfer participants to the region directly and this does not make it easy for participants. Changes need to made with contact numbers for the NDIA and the regions so participants can talk to their region directly and return calls to their region straight away instead of having to ring the 1800 number and leave message, after message, after message, after message, after message and after message to let the contact centre know to send an email and referral through to the region to call participants back because participants have not had a call from the region and there has been no communication.