If you’re an NDIS participant, chances are you’ve heard of self-management before. While self-management provides more flexibility (our main mission at tappON), self-managing your NDIS funding also comes with its own unique set of responsibilities.
The benefits of self-managing your NDIS plan
Self-managing your NDIS funding will provide you with:
- Choice in what supports you purchase, who provides these supports and how they’re delivered
- Flexibility to use any provider
- The ability to employ or contract staff directly, or have someone employ staff on your behalf
- The ability to negotiate costs directly with support providers
- Control over your budget throughout the duration of your plan
The responsibilities of NDIS self-management
- You must purchase supports and services that link to your NDIS goals
- Making clear agreements with your providers about the services provided and how you’re going to pay for them
- Ensuring that the costs can be met within your budget
- Claiming and paying for your supports on time
- Keeping your invoices and receipts
- Showing how you’re using your funding to reach your goals at your plan review
- Advising the NDIA of any change in circumstances that may affect your self-management
- Participating in any payment auditing on request.
You’re also able to use your NDIS funding to pay for support to help meet these responsibilities, for example you could hire a support professional to assist with bookkeeping and budget management.
Great, so how do I start?
Once you have an approved NDIS plan, you’ll be able to see your plan and support budget online using the NDIS Myplace portal.
The plan will show your goals and the funding that you have available to help meet them, based on what is considered ‘reasonable and necessary’ for your needs.
What types of support are funded in my NDIS plan?
There are three different types of support that can be funded in your NDIS plan. You can self manage all or just one or two of these categories depending on your needs:
Core supports
These help you with everyday activities, your disability related needs and to work towards your goals. You can use the funding that you have in your core budget for any of these types of support.
If you run low on funds in one category, you can use some from another category provided your needs are still met within the overall core budget. The types of support available to you within your core budget are:
- Assistance with daily living, for example household cleaning
- Consumables, for example continence products
- Assistance with social and community participation, for example a support worker to assist you with social and community activities
- Transport, this is to assist you travel to work and other places that will help you achieve your goals
Capacity Building
- Support Coordination – a fixed amount for a support coordinator to help you use your plan
- Improved living arrangements, support helping you to find and maintain appropriate housing
- Increased social and community participation – skill development to increase your capacity to participate in community, social and recreational activities
- Finding and keeping a job – Employment related support such as training and assessments that can help you find and keep a job
- Improved relationships – to help you interact with others
- Improved health and wellbeing – diet and exercise advice to help you manage your disability
- Improved learning – advice and help for you to proceed to TAFE and University from school
- Improved life choices – plan management to help you manage your plan, funding and services
- Improved daily living – Assessment, training and therapy to help increase your skills, independence and community participation. Can be delivered in groups or individually
Capital budget
- Assistive Technology – items for mobility, personal care, communication and recreation such as wheelchairs or vehicle modifications
- Home modifications – for example installation of a handrail in a bathroom, or specialist accommodation where required because of their disability.
Stated supports
If your supports are listed as stated supports, this means that funding has been allocated exclusively for that specific support and can’t be used for anything else.
Registered provider supports
Some support must be provided by a provider that is registered with the NDIS. This includes:
- Specialist accommodation
- Behaviour support that provides assessment or develops a plan
- Any support where the provider may need to use a restricted practice
How do I pay for my NDIS support?
There are a couple of ways to pay for your support with your NDIS funding.
- Make a payment request then pay your provider
- After receiving an invoice from your provider, make a payment request. Money from your NDIS budget will be paid into your nominated bank account within 48 hours. You can then pay your provider.
- Pay your provider and then make a payment request
- Once you’ve received your support, you pay for your provider with your own money and then get a receipt (hold onto this). Make a payment request to have the money reimbursed from your NDIS plan budget within 48 hours.
Making an NDIS payment request
Using the myplace portal, select the payment request option. You’ll then be able to enter the start and end dates for the support, the payment amount and the support category. It must match the invoice / receipt from your support provider.
Tips
We’ve asked our members for their tips for self management best practices. If you have some to add please email us at support@tappon.co.
- Create a seperate bank account
- Using a separate bank account for NDIS purposes will help you see what money is coming in and what’s going out. Your funding will only be paid into an account managed by the individual responsible for self-managing the supports.
- Set a regular date / time to make your claims on the NDIS myplace portal to keep on top of them.
- Keep a list of what works, and what doesn’t – this will be useful at your next plan review.
