Anonymous – 07/10/2021

No. I’ve found it extremely difficult to navigate and understand the clear changes and I am a registered provider who regularly explains complex matters to staff and participants. Was still a lot of content that’s hard to digest.

There’s not enough being done for participants that have psychosocial disabilities and do not have the funding to have a functional capacity assessment done by an OT. As a result they are quick to give up and as they alredy don’t have supports they won’t have anyone supporting them to maintain and encouraging them to continue. It is these participants that need the most support and it is these participants that are quickly turned away.

Yes. 21 days to 90 days.

The timeframe given for the feedback has been extremely short notice for such significant change.

I can’t even find page 4 of the NDIS PSG rules. That should be a concern in itself. From what i’ve read I can say it is not clear.

Yes, as a provider that has multiple participants with psychosocial disabilities I can say this is a much needed change.
IS the NDIA going to review already rejected claim under the old rules and re-implement them to ensure that those who have been missed before are now re-assessed under the new laws?

No.

To get in contact with a planner or the NDIS is almost impossible. Yes you can connect to an NDIA call centre rep who does not have any training or information. They are only call centre reps that provide information that is readily available on the website. We need actual contact from the NDIA. On multiple occasions I have called the NDIA to be provided the wrong information or information that contradicts the website. Not cool.
In addition we have other providers advising of going against NDIS rules by just calling the NDIA to get “approval” and when the call centre rep says “should be fine” they take a reference number and use that as evidence that a representative approved. Again, not cool.
The lockdowns in Greater Sydney had a stop on group activities. However, there were multiple dates given from the NDIA and advised if we don’t get updated that we can resume group. No further communication was given and only a week later they advise that it was meant to continue and set a new date. All of which contradicts the advice from NSW Health. This has allowed providers that don’t want to do the right thing a lot of opportunities to perform in group activities and claim the exemptions and having the providers that are trying to do the right thing in a bad situation. We have parents asking to resume groups ASAP and showing other providers doing this all due to a lack of appropriate communication.

I have seen too many times families assumed to be self-managed. Families that are not able to navigate the self-managed world but becuase the planners don’t ask they are put in self-managed and we are subsequently going months without billing until a lite review can be put in place. More training for planners please.

As an employment service provider we work with a lot of high functioning participants. Once we advise that the participants are working and in-search of employment etc they are assumed to have higher capacity and a significant % of their funding is reduced as they are seem to be capable as they are working. It fails to take into account that just because they can do one job and be paid for it, they are still unable to do many basic jobs.
Just because they are assisted by an employment specialist to tap into a skill of theirs and turn it into a profit it does not mean that their disability has any less of a functional impact.