This is the sixth post in our blog series about some of the common confusions and inconsistencies we’ve heard from people coming out of NDIS planning meetings. We’ve been responding to some of these as they’ve come up. If you’ve heard anything else about the NDIS process that doesn’t sound quite right, please let us know!

Another confusion we’ve come across is around Plan Management and Supports Coordination.

To recap on what these things are, plan management is one of the three ways you can manage your NDIS funds. With plan management, you have the flexibility to pay for both registered and unregistered providers with your NDIS funds. Once your plan is approved, your Plan Manager (who will need to be NDIS registered) will deal with the financial and administrative side of your plan, and can do some service co-ordination tasks as well.

Plan management is great if you want more control over how your needs are met but you either don’t want to deal with the financial and administrative side of things, or the procedural decision around the float for self-managers (which is currently being challenged) makes self-management unviable.

Supports Coordination (or ‘Coordination of Supports’) is when someone helps you to implement your plan, to get started and find services and supports in your local community. If you receive supports co-ordination, it is a separately funded part of your Plan [within this link, do a search for ‘Coordination of Supports’].

The development of Supports Coordination is a construct developed by the NDIA. The role of Supports Coordination includes:

• Supporting implementation and identifying options for all supports in the plan, including informal, mainstream and community, as well as funded supports,
• Strengthening and enhancing people’s abilities to coordinate supports and participate in the community, reach decisions and develop agreements with support providers, and
• Building people’s capacity to achieve greater independence, self-direct supports in the longer term and understand funding flexibility.

What’s all this code for? Supports Coordination is far more than “just” case management. At a forum run by the NDIA in Sydney on 2 December, it was stated that Supports Co-ordination is about helping to put people’s desires for different outcomes into effect. It was also about looking beyond funded supports. Supports co-ordinators play critical roles in linking people to mainstream services and facilitating the acceptance of and engagement with those services and organisations.

More information about Supports Coordination can be found here.

Although there can be overlap between ‘plan management’ and ‘supports coordination’, you can also see that the two also have key differences.

We’ve heard that people are having difficulty in their first NDIS planning meeting because a question is being asked along the lines of ‘How do you want your plan managed?’ Then there is a list that includes both supports coordination and plan management, and you can only choose one of these options.

But what if you want a Plan Manager to help manage your NDIS funds AND you need supports coordination to help implement your Plan and work out what to spend those funds on?

Based on the direct experiences of people in their planning meetings, if this happens in your planning meeting, we suggest that you choose ‘supports coordination’, and then ask for ‘plan management’ to be noted in the comments or elsewhere as an additional request.

Why? Because the option to plan manage your NDIS funds is not subject to the ‘reasonable and necessary’ decision-making framework. Plan management is your legislated right as per Section 43 of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (unless you have ever been insolvent, which is the same if you want to self manage). Because Supports Coordination is subject to the ‘reasonable and necessary’ framework, you need to make sure you ask for it in your meeting, state why it is ‘reasonable and necessary’, and select Supports Coordination when asked ‘How do you want your plan managed?’ It is very important that these arguments as to why Supports Coordination is ‘reasonable and necessary’ are recorded appropriately in the main part of the data collection process, rather than just noted somewhere.

If you follow the above and your plan still comes back as ‘agency managed’ (this is actually happening to people), then you are less likely to need to request a Review, because plan management is not subject to the ‘reasonable and necessary’ framework. What you would need to do is get in touch with your NDIS planner or LAC and get this changed. If you don’t get a timely response, you would then need to follow the complaints process.

We hope this has been helpful. As always, if information you’ve heard from the NDIA contradicts anything we’ve written here, please leave a comment below or send us an email.

If you’d like to learn more about Supports Coordination, check out some of the services InCharge provides here.

This blog post has come about after receiving this question via the InCharge website:

‘I’m just wondering if we go with an agency to manage the funding for our plan for the first year, will it be possible to change agencies or even decide to self manage after that initial year? Will the NDIA policy allow us to do that or do we have to stay with the same agency indefinitely and never be able to self manage after being locked into one agency.’

We figured that many people would have the same, or similar, questions. So here’s our response.

First of all, it’s important to know that when we talk about ‘Agency’ and ‘Agency Managed’, we are referring to the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).

‘Service providers’ are the professionals that the ‘Agency’ will manage payments for.

There are four ways you can manage your NDIS funds:

• Self-management (you pay service providers with your NDIS funds)
• Plan-management (a plan manager pays service providers with your NDIS funds)
• Agency-management (the NDIA pays service providers with your NDIS funds)
• A combination of these options (you pay some service providers for some things, and/or a plan manager and/or the NDIA pays other service providers for other things.)

If you choose to have the NDIA manage your funds in the first year, you can absolutely change in the second year – and after that as well. During the first year of your plan, you can use your funds to engage any registered service providers* you wish, and you can also switch to use other registered service providers if you want to. Sometimes they might request notice of this, and so you should check their service agreement thoroughly.

*A registered service provider is registered with the NDIA to provide services for NDIS participants.

If you want to try self-management, we suggest a couple of things:

• You could try self-managing a small or manageable part of your plan in the first year, in order to gain experience so that you can potentially self-manage more of your plan in the second year. You can also ask for some assistance to learn how to do it; you might be provided with some hours for training and support, so that you can engage someone in your first year to provide more information and assistance. This is called Supports Coordination. InCharge provides Supports Coordination, and you can find out more here.
• You could also try Plan Management, which provides someone to assist with the financial side of things. Plan Management has many of the same benefits as self-management.

You will need to ask for these in your planning meeting. We cannot guarantee what the NDIA will decide, but we always recommend asking. For more information about some common terms used by the NDIA, check out our recent post about Supports Coordination, LACs and Plan Management.

If you’ve already been to your NDIS planning meeting and are self- or plan-managing part or all of your funds, how are you finding it so far?

This is the second post of our six-part series on confusion-clearing and myth-busting pieces about the NDIS. As we said in the first post, What’s going on with the float for people who self-manage their NDIS funds, please respond in the comments or contact us if you’ve been given different advice from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA)!

This is another confusion-clearing piece – this time about the difference between Support Coordination, Plan Management and Local Area Coordinators (LACs).

Support Coordination

As an NDIS participant, you (or your nominee) become responsible for getting started, understanding your plan and its budgets, and finding and connecting with supports and services in your community to achieve your the goals in your plan.

A Support Coordinator is someone who could be funded separately in your NDIS plan to help you do just this!

They are like the person you can look at and say ‘Holy cow now I have my plan what do I do now?’

They should be like a partner to you to ‘breathe life into your plan’ and become your contact person.

At present they must also be a person or provider who is registered by the NDIA to provide this service.

The official definition of Support Coordination by the NDIA is

‘Assistance to strengthen participants abilities to coordinate and implement supports and participate more fully in the community. It can include initial assistance with linking participants with the right providers to meet their needs, assistance to source providers, coordinating a range of supports both funded and mainstream and building on informal supports, resolving points of crisis, parenting training and developing participant resilience in their own network and community.’

You can find more information about Support Coordination in our Mixed Messages: My First Plan (and How Do I Help People to make the most of their Planning Meetings blog on LinkedIn. If you think you need Support Coordination, you will need to discuss needing assistance for implementing your plan in your planning meeting .

For more information about the services we provide, click here.

Plan Manager

Plan Management is one of the ways you can manage your NDIS funding package. Remember there are three options:

• Manage your own funds (self-management)
• Get a professional to do it (plan-management)
• Let the NDIA do it (agency-management)
• A combination of the above.

Again, you will need to say in your planning meeting how you want to manage your NDIS funding package – and you can choose a mix of these options in a way that best suits you.

So a Plan Manager can help with the financial tasks of a plan. For example, organising providers and their payments, processing of claims and invoices and tracking of budgets. They may also do some tasks like a Support Coordinator does – for example, liaising with providers and perhaps trouble-shooting. They are also paid separately in your NDIS plan to do this. They must also be a registered provider.

Like self-management, if you plan-manage your funds, you can use any provider you think will help you achieve the goals in your plan. They don’t need to be registered. We have assisted people link with local services that are not NDIS registered to help achieve their goals – local small business advisors, personal concierges and cleaners as some examples.

So choosing a Plan Manager can be a great way of getting the benefits of self management, but with someone to assist with the financial side of things.

Remember that our social media assistant, Lauren, uses a Plan Manager, and writes about it here.

Local Area Coordinators (LAC)

An LAC may be the person you meet with during your first planning meeting, and then perhaps afterwards.

Because of the large number of people coming through the NDIS, LACs have been tasked with gathering data and information from people in their planning meetings, and will pass this information onto the NDIA so they can turn it into a plan. That is, they have taken on a planning role, although only the NDIA has authority to create an actual plan with dollars against it.

The NDIA has also said that a number of people will be allocated an LAC to help them implement their plan, and perhaps this will be for people they think only need a small amount of help to get started – not for those who need Support Coordination.

We wrote about the specifics of the NSW planning process here.

LACs do not work for the NDIA. In NSW, St Vincent de Paul and Uniting are the organisations that received funding to do this. There are also LACs in some parts of Victoria. Tenders for other States are happening now.

There is some controversy surrounding LACs taking on these planning specific roles. This is because this was not the original intention of the role. Indeed, LAC has a long history in Western Australia, particularly, of vital community development and capacity building work. This is because it is understood that genuine inclusion takes more work than just people with disabilities using their individualised funding packages. For a recent critique about this read here.

Summary

Support Coordination is when someone helps you to implement your plan, get started and find services and supports in your local community. Plan Management is one of three funding options you can use to manage your NDIS funds, and Local Area Coordinators (LACs) have been tasked with gathering data and information from people in their planning meetings, and will pass this information onto the NDIA so they can turn it into a plan.

Image of bright yellow sunglasses and beads

Getting NDIS ready is also about deciding how you want to manage your NDIS funds.

There are three ways to manage your NDIS funding. The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) can help you manage payments to your providers, you can manage these payments yourself (Self Management) or you can have another provider (a Plan Manager) assist you. You can even mix them!

In your planning meeting we want you to be informed about your options so you can state clearly what you would like to happen.

We’re going to be dedicating some air time in the next while to the two options called Plan Management and Self Management.

Please note that at the time of publication the NDIA launched a new website. On the old website there were two documents that clearly described Plan Management and we cannot locate them on the new website despite a lot of looking!

So….. Here is a link to information published by the A.C.T Government about these choices.

Here is another run-down about it.

These three options for managing your funds continue to exist!

Plan Managers need to be registered providers, so you can find and engage with them once you receive your plan, and through other organisations and businesses which are now listing providers.

Lauren Hislop lives in the Hunter NSW NDIS site and tells us about using a registered Plan Management provider.

Photo of Lauren Hislop

Goals are a bit daunting important

A few years ago I was initially a bit daunted about the prospect of setting goals for my first NDIS plan. I thought, “what if I’m currently satisfied with my life?”   However, as I did some self exploration, I discovered that there were, in fact, areas of my life that I wanted to improve.

I considered questions (and you can too) such as;

“what do I want my life to look like?”

“what excites me?” and

“what would infuse my life with colour?”

I had to be open to the possibilities.

My advice to people planning their goals is not to be afraid to dream big. When I first wrote my goals I was afraid to dream big. I wasn’t sure what goals to list, and maybe you aren’t sure too. However, with encouragement from others I dared to state my desires.

One of my goals was and is to find work.

Obtaining employment is one of my greatest desires. Being equipped with three university degrees I assumed I would get a position. However due to structural barriers I have found it a struggle. Unfortunately my disability overshadows my skills.

Turning goals into reality

Once I had established what my goals were, I had to figure out how to implement them. My goals were a template for my life.

When I received my first NDIS plan, it appeared great on paper. However I had no idea how to use it. I consider myself intelligent and yet I couldn’t figure out how to take advantage of it. At that time, NDIA were paying my support providers directly. Unfortunately I began to feel nothing had changed from before NDIS. I had the same agency providing me with the same care, but I was wanted something different.

Infusing my plan and life with colour

Last year I decided to engage a plan manager to help manage my funds. I also had some Supports Co-ordination hours in my plan to help with these kinds of things as well. I chose a local organisation that don’t provide any other kinds of services. I really like their independence and their values. These are two important things to look out for in my opinion.

From the moment I engaged a plan manager my life began to infuse with colour. I cannot believe how my life has changed. I have a plan manager, who puts me at the forefront of making my own decisions. They check to see how I’m going. They have done things like:

help me recruit my own workers

keep track of my budget

pay and process invoices

problem-solve with providers

This is definitely the best choice for me. I feel like I’m actually living life! It is so good to know that you are in control without having to deal with the mundane bits. It has made the principles, such as choice, a voice and control a reality in my life.

Gaining skills and finding work

Because I plan manage, I can use different kinds of services and supports to achieve the goals in my plan. I can definitely use disability services if I want, but I can also think beyond these. Previously I thought I had to use disability support workers for everything. This is one of the benefits of plan management and self management. I can look to different people, businesses and organisations in my community to help me achieve my goals.

In my plan I have some funding to help me develop confidence in my ability to undertake paid work. This is the importance of thinking about goals, because if I didn’t state this as a goal, it might not have led to this funding.

One brilliant outcome is I have used this funding to improve my professional skills.

I am a researcher and writer and have been looking for work in this area. I have been writing for  different disability rights organisations. There is a lot of great opportunity here with a growing number of organisations valuing and paying people with disability to write. This got us talking about the online world, content marketing and social media marketing opportunities. My plan manager informed me I could use my funding to engage someone in this area to mentor and train me.

I was put in touch with Andrea, a small business marketing consultant. Her training definitely equipped me better, so when Libby asked me to work for InCharge in this area, I was ecstatic.  This training will also help me with future opportunities. It enhances my appeal to other organisations who would like to contract me. I cannot express how much economic participation means to me and other people with disabilities. We yearn to be productive.

Freedom in finding my own support workers

One of the greatest benefits I have from plan management is that it has helped me to recruit my own support workers. Initially I just had personal care for an hour each day to help me shower and dress. I had no idea I could use workers for accessing the community  and other things.

There has been great freedom in interviewing and choosing for myself. My worker is invaluable. She does things like takes me shopping, attends appointments with me, helps with filing and making calls because my speech is slurred, and acts like a personal assistant in work meetings. Having this assistance has allowed me to feel that I am a valued member in the community. I set the hours she works. I’m in control.

In my opinion we need to make the most of our plan. This will not only impact on us as individuals but on society as a whole. If we have support we can use our talents and skills to enhance society. Enjoy the journey!

Marianne Williamson wrote

“It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.”

It’s time to let our light shine