Frequently asked questions

If you are not happy with your funding you have the right to ask for an internal review of your plan by the NDIA. For more information about the internal review process visit the How to review a planning decision page.

The Capital Support budget relates to supports such as assistive technology or modifications to your home and as such depends on quotes from suppliers. Funds within this budget can only be used for their specific purpose (e.g. a rail in the bathroom or a wheelchair) and cannot be used to fund other items.

The Capital Support budget has two support categories:

Assistive Technology – includes equipment items for mobility, personal care, communication and recreational inclusion (e.g. wheelchairs or vehicle modifications)
Home Modifications (e.g. rail in the bathroom).

The Capacity Building funding is allocated across eight support sub-categories, each matched with the goals you’ve come up within your plan. You can choose how to spend these funds to purchase any approved individual support within its category, but won’t be able to move funding from one category to another.
The Capacity Building support categories include:

  1. Choice and Control e.g. training in planning and plan management
  2. Daily Activity e.g. therapy aimed at building your capacity to participate
  3. Employment e.g. employment-related assessment and counselling
  4. Health and Wellbeing e.g. exercise advice required due to impact of disability
  5. Home Living e.g. support to obtain/retain appropriate accommodation
  6. Lifelong Learning e.g. assistance moving from school to further education
  7. Relationships e.g. positive behavioral support strategies to reduce behaviors of concern
  8. Social and Community Participation e.g. Individual life skills development and training including public transport training and support, developing skills for community, social and recreational participation.

Support Coordination (if required) is included in the Capacity Building budget. This is a fixed amount for strengthening participant’s abilities to coordinate and implement supports in their plans and to participate more fully in the community.

Every person living with a disability has different needs. Your NDIS funding is there to help you meet you’re short and medium to long-term goals in your NDIS plan.
Your funding is based on what is ‘reasonable’ and ‘necessary’ to achieve your goals, in addition to the support provided by family, friends, and other community and government services.

There are three types of support budgets that may be funded in your NDIS plan is Core supports, Capacity Building Supports and Capital Support.

A surprising amount of NDIS funding goes unspent – around 30% of it according to the 2017-2018 federal budget.
Any unspent funds are not added to my next plan and are returned to the NDIA.

At Plan Manage Assist we get asked a lot about what are the most common therapies funded by the NDIS?

  • Occupational Therapy – Occupational therapy can assist people with Autism to do everyday tasks by finding ways to work within their needs and make the most of their abilities and interests. This may include modifying daily tasks or recommending the right technology for your needs. As with any support, the NDIS will fund it if it can be considered reasonable and necessary.
  • Dancing – The NDIS can provide funding to help you join a dance class; either by funding the lesson itself or by assisting you to get to and from class. As with any support, the NDIS will fund it if it can be considered reasonable and necessary.
  • Music therapy – Music therapy is a powerful therapeutic tool that can assist people living with Autism in a number of ways including improving memory and helping with communication. As with any support, the NDIS will fund it if it can be considered reasonable and necessary.
  • Sport – Playing sport has many benefits and can improve your health benefits as many studies have shown. Because of these benefits, the NDIS can provide funding to help you get involved in sports, by either funding sporting activities or funding (part of) your sporting equipment. As with any support, the NDIS will fund it if it can be considered reasonable and necessary.

Your Core budget is the most flexible, and includes four categories of support:

  1. Consumables (e.g. purchasing everyday use items such as continence aids)
  2. Daily Activities (e.g. assistance with self-care activities during the day or evening)
  3. Assistance with Social and Community Participation (e.g. supports to enable you to engage in social or recreational activities)
  4. Transport (e.g. if you are unable to use public transport because of your disability).

The good news is you can generally use Core budget funds allocated against one support category to purchase supports under another support category unless funds have been set aside for a specific purpose such as periodic payments for transport, or any Core budget line item type that is:

  • Compensation
  • Specialised Disability Accommodation i.e. accommodation for participants who require specialist housing solutions due to significant functional impairment and/or very high support needs
  • In-kind e.g. Government pre-paid supports such as school transport or some therapy supports
  • Stated item (including Quotes for certain items) e.g. assistance in a shared living arrangement.

In these cases, the funds within a category must only be used for that specific purpose. For details about your Core supports please refer to your NDIS plan.

After your meeting and discussions with the NDIA your ECEI Coordinator, LAC or NDIA planner will let you know the next steps and how long it will take to receive your approved plan.
During your planning conversation, you can request a copy of your plan printed in a variety of accessible formats such as Braille, electronic text (on CD), large print or audio (on CD), or translated into your preferred language.

NDIS plans are tailored to each person’s individual needs so funding will vary, depending on the person’s support needs.
When you meet with an NDIS representative, to develop your plan, you will be asked about your current situation and what supports you receive, and how you manage everyday activities, like taking a shower or cooking your meals. This information helps to form the basis of your plan, working out your supports; how they are reasonable and necessary; how they link to your immediate needs, and how the NDIS can help you to work towards achieving your goals. Once you complete the planning process you will receive an individualised funding amount, which you have choice and control over the support you receive. Visit the “My first plan” page on the NDIS website for more information.

Instructions for participants and service providers. Read more

How do I manage the funding in my NDIS plan?
When we talk about managing your NDIS plan, we mean the way you manage the financial transactions involved with accessing and paying for supports as part of your plan.
As an NDIS participant, you have three main options: Plan Managed, NDIS Managed Self Managed and you may also select a combination of these three choices.

What are the differences between being plan-managed and self-managed?

  1. Plan-managed – A Plan Manager will take care of your plan’s financial transactions. You will have funding for a Plan Management service provider included in your plans budget. In this situation, the NDIS will pay your Plan Manager, who will directly pay for all supports you have asked them to manage. The Plan Manager will take care of your plan’s financial transactions and monitor your budget. You can choose any provider, whether they are registered with the NDIS or not.
  2. NDIS-managed – This is where the providers claim directly from the NDIA. When the NDIA manages your plan, the NDIS will directly pay your support providers for you. You must choose your registered NDIS providers if the NDIA manages your plan. You cannot choose providers or support people who are not registered with NDIS.
  3. Self-managed – This option has the most paperwork, you directly manage the funds and are responsible for all the financial transactions. The NDIS will pay you directly for the supports you claim under your plan’s budgets. Being self-managed allows you to choose any provider, whether they are registered with the NDIS or not.

Which option to choose?

This depends a lot on your circumstances and how important it is for you to have control and choose your supports, physiotherapists etc. Participants with a Plan Manager don’t have the additional burden of paying the bills. Your service providers are able to send all invoices directly to Plan Manage Assist for easy processing.

Plus, you have the option of choosing registered and non-registered NDIS providers.

What will this cost me?

The NDIA will provide funding in your plan to pay for Plan Management. There is no direct cost to you but you need to request this in your plan review meeting to ensure it is included.

An overview of Plan Manage Assist. Click to read more

Finding a Provider?
Once you’ve identified the types of services that may help you achieve your goals, it’s time to find out more about the providers in your area and whether they are right for you. Your ECEI Coordinator, LAC or Support Coordinator can also help you. To find NDIS registered providers you can search the Provider Finder on the myplace portal. Click to view a step by step guide to the NDIS myplace participant portal.

You might want to research providers on the internet, check reviews, get advice from friends or family and speak with different providers either face-to-face or over the phone before you agree to work with them.

Plan Manage Assist work with hundreds of providers, as long as they meet the legal constraints of what the NDIA deems as “reasonable and necessary”.

For those looking for providers to engage, we are able to offer advice based on your individual needs and goals. We are also usually able to connect you with dedicated support coordinators who can contribute to your plan’s success.

Engaging a new Provider?

Once you have found the provider that suits your needs Plan Manage Assist sends you the following:

Provider introduction letter
Provider Input form – which provides all the information we need to set up your provider in the system so we can process invoices efficiently
If for some reason you are not happy with the services provided by your providers you must notify the provider and Plan Manage Assist so we can adjust accordingly.

For whatever reason, you can make the choice to change your Plan Manager.
If you decide to change to Plan Manage Assist whilst you are being managed by another Plan Management Provider you need to:

  1. Check your current agreement and terms of conditions (usually it is 1 months notice)
  2. Contact the NDIA 1800 800 110 to advise them
  3. Notify your current Plan Manager in writing advising them you will be ceasing services and ask for confirmation in writing as to the date the service will end. This is important so as to ensure future service bookings will be cancelled
  4. Notify your providers that you will be changing or let us know and we can send your providers an ‘Input Form’
    Or call us and we are more than happy to assist you

Yes, Plan Manage Assist is in all states except Western Australia. Our head office is based in North Sydney in NSW, however we have team members in all states.

Once you have engaged Plan Manage Assist to be your Plan Manager we will provide you with login details to view your budgets for each category, invoices and lots more.
If you are visually impaired or are not familiar with working with computers, tablets etc one of our team members will be more than happy to give you an update as to your expenditure to date.

For all providers and participants submitting an invoice is an easy process.

  1. For providers – you must be set up in our system so that when we process your invoices we have all the important information ie business name, ABN, email, phone number & the service you provide. Please contact our accounts department for further details accounts@planmanageassist.com.au
  2. For participants – you are able to claim a personal reimbursement with a receipt, Plan Manage Assist will send you details of what is required or email us accounts@planmanageassist.com.au

Click here to view the presentation

Testimonials

Read what our Participants, Carers, Support Coordinators and Providers are saying about us.

Thank you I love you guys. I can always speak to someone and not get a recorded message.

David Kirk, Participant

Thank you Plan Manage Assist your team are so involved.

Josie, Participant

Thank you Kathleen and the team at Plan Manage Assist, you honestly go beyond your duty of care in providing such a fabulous service, it goes to show you are passionate about what you do. I will definitely be recommending you. Thanks again.

Sabin Raut, Parent

Easy to deal with, great communication and go above and beyond!

Benjamin Cooper, Provider

You are the most responsive plan manager I have ever worked with, keep it up.

Kate, Support Coordinator

We are grateful to everyone at Plan Manage Assist for supporting us with all enquiries related invoices and payments for NDIS. Specially Kathleen and her partner are very helpful and always respond to our enquiries swiftly. We really like their work ethics and approach when dealing with our matter. Thank you for all your support PMA. Best regards.

Vilas and Eva, Parents

Great to hear from you. We are all well thank you, hope you’re keeping well too. Category Breakdown – this new format looks great – I like that all budget data can be viewed on one page, as you said, it’s not dissimilar to the current page format, this is a nice updated version. Dial Graph – this looks great too and easy to read. Generally speaking it’s not as informative as the category breakdown )all budget information on one page).

Trish, Carer

I am really happy with Plan Manage Assist. Their communication has been great. They notify me when funding is close to depletion, or if there are any issues with my participant’s plan. I have not experienced this type of communication with any other plan manager provider. They have also been super helpful with answering my questions when calling or emailing. The support coordination portal is also great, as it is easy to navigate and read.

Emilia, Breakthru

Hello, thank you so much. What a great thing to do. Have to say this does not happen with other plan managers I work with.

Annette O - Support Coordinator, Nexus Support Services

I changed from Self Managed to Plan Manage Assist some two years ago. PMA allows me to manage the accounts, check the invoices, and keep on top of the finances. At the end of the two-year NDIS plan it is relatively simple to formulate a new budget for the next two years. I have no hesitation in recommending Plan Manage Assist for the task.

Peter Flood, Carer

I changed from Self Managed to Plan Manage Assist some two years ago. PMA allows me to manage the accounts, check the invoices, and keep on top of the finances. At the end of the two-year NDIS plan it is relatively simple to formulate a new budget for the next two years. I have no hesitation in recommending Plan Manage Assist for the task.

Maryanne, Carer

My mum moved my uncle over to you as she was so stressed, your team have gone above and beyond to hel her and taken the stress out of her managing my uncle’s plan. Thank you or all your help and making my mum’s life a lot easier.

Lucy 1236, Family

Thank you for the lovely Christmas message. Merry Christmas to everyone at your wonderful workplace, you guys always correct my mistakes graciously and are always kind and professional when I need help, all the best to all of you.

Lisa, Provider

Confidence and Peace of Mind

Registered Providers Are Individuals Or Organisations That Are Registered With The NDIA To Deliver A Support Or A Product To A Participant In The NDIS.