Lived Experience Forum

[Former-Member]

I think I will be in the near future, @eth . Very much over this unnecessary rollercoaster. 

[Appleblossom]

This part of discussion re funding of psych services is really important for my son. @CheerBear  @eth 

I will keep it in back of mind as we go forward.  He only wanted support for medical services and is upset they wont fund that. I thought that was the case, so eventually we will see if we can expand his plan.

I still have not had my own planning meeting or even thought about what I would like.

@Former-Member  glad you managed to find @eth  on your own.  I had a feeling you two would get along.

[eth]

Hope some of the content here is helpful @Appleblossom .  If you can prove that mainstream services (eg under mental health care plan) have been exhausted and are not enough you stand a better chance of getting NDIS to fund psychology.

I went through their pricelist (55 pages, on their website) with a fine tooth comb to see what I was eligible for.  It helped me clarify what I wanted to ask for.  Worth the time it took.

[CheerBear]

Again another frustration with the NDIS for me 😠 I feel like a volcano whenever I think about anything NDIS related. I am really struggling to keep my frustration in check now.

I'm funded for around an hour a fortnight of support coordination which is supposed to be being used to help me learn how to use the NDIS. In the 3 months since I've had my plan I've met with my support coordinator twice, both times for an hour - once as an initial meeting and handover and once to do a request for for a plan review. We've spoken only a few times on the phone (maybe 4 times), with each call only lasting a few minutes to ask a simple question.

I've just received an invoice for the last meeting we had which went for an hour yet I've been billed for an hour and 45 minutes. I thought maybe that was justifiable in that perhaps there was paperwork and notes the support coordinator had to do following the meeting, though we did spend that hour together only doing paperwork for the plan review (which was the support coordinator's suggestion so I didn't eat into my funds) so that to me is a bit iffy.

Where it gets really iffy is that the invoice was also for an hour and a half of support coordination from a couple of days after that meeting. I definitely did not receive support coordination during that time and have no idea where that has come from. All up those two days, where I spent one hour receiving support, came to over $300 - more than my budget for the month.

My worry in questioning it is that I'll be be billed for asking the question and then billed for the time it takes my support coordinator to write case notes in my file saying that I asked a question. With being billed in 15 minute blocks, for me to ask a question then have the support coordinator document that I asked a question, could (probably will by the look of it) take 2 x 15 minutes of support - the equivalent of a week of my budget for support coordination.

Maybe I'm missing something or being unreasonable or too cynical, but red flags are happening for me and this looks and feels much more like a money maker for an organisation than any kind of support for me 😑

Today I have a phone appointment with the support coordinator to do an assessment that's apparently required before I meet with a support worker later in the week. The appointment today was organised via text message and took a number of messages to find an agreed time after the support coordinator wanted to change the time they initially suggested and that I agreed to. I wonder how much I'll be charged for those messages and this assessment 😏

[Former-Member]

Sorry to hear this @CheerBear I'm afraid I can't provide any advice for how to rectify this issue, but you're not alone, this has happened to me also, albeit in a far larger degree, which is part of why the whole fact that most of my funding went towards the social, community and civic participation category makes me depressed. 

The support worker organisation I have basically ate up almost 85% of the budget that was allocated towards that category before giving me any chance to perhaps collect myself, have a discussion with my coordinator and decide what other things in the category will actually be useful, I was thinking maybe a small life skills based group in the community because I believe I read that is part of this category. Now there is not enough funding to do so. 

Also @eth  I thought I'd ask, just because we are on this topic, do you know if it is allowed for an organisation/provider to bill in advance? The support worker organisation has done so, they have billed for the entire year of my plan. So this means that my funding has been drained by a service I do not even use or need. Sounds rather iffy to me, but coordinator says it is allowed when a participant is agency managed. 

Support worker organisation also stole some of my daily living allocation by billing for self-care. They never provided such a thing. In fact, we never discussed it at all back when I hadn't withdrawn from them yet. This too was depressing to see when the admin who does all their billing sent me the schedule of bills, as I REALLY need actual help with that. 

[CheerBear]

😑 @Former-Member sorry to hear. I've caught a few of your posts about the NDIS and feel really frustrated with you. Some of the issues you've had are similar to the ones I'm having too.

From what I've heard when the NDIS works it can work really well. But when it doesn't (as has been my experience so far) it really fails.

[Former-Member]

Yes, I've heard the same too @CheerBear  but I struggle with not thinking that its just my luck to end up in a situation like this. Their lack of understanding towards psychosocial disabilities doesn't help any, either. 

[CheerBear]

So much with you on this @Former-Member. I wish there was something more helpful I could offer you but you have my understanding and empathy.

[eth]

Hi @CheerBear  @Former-Member 

Sorry guys but I'm not able to answer questions about billing/inappropriate billing as I have a plan manager and it's working well with her for me.  Some invoices are delayed and then come in a batch which is a problem with working out exactly what funds remain, but other than that this aspect of my plan has been going smoothly so far.  I did have to sign a new service agreement with the org that does my Coordination of Supports and it does say 15 min increments for work done and 6 min increments for phone contact which sounds similar to what you are paying CheerBear.

[Former-Member]

That's OK @eth  I was just wondering. Good that your plan is going smoothly with billing.