Are they going to extend my plan and NOT allocate any additional funding?!

DATE LAST EDITED: 4 October 2023

NDIA letter dated May 2023:

The nominee (mother of a child on the NDIS) rang me in tears when she received this letter from the NDIS in the mail.

Here is the context. The plan only had $5,000 left and the way this letter reads - the funding will stay, but the plan date will be extended for another year. No mention that any extra funding will go into the plan for the extra year!! So here the nominee is led to believe she only has $5,000 that has to last another year!

But wait, it gets worse... The nominee decided to call the NDIS call centre to find out what the letter actually meant. It was confirmed that the funds would stay at $5,000 for yet another year and if the nominee wasn’t happy with that then she had to get prepared for a full plan re-assessment.

Then the nominee called me, the Support Coordinator, and shared the letter for me to read. At that time (May 2023) I had not been shown this letter from a client yet. I had never heard of the NDIS doing this new rule and there was no warning from the NDIA that this was a new way they were going to strip funding from participant’s plans moving forward. I decided to call the NDIS call centre and ask what this actually meant.

The NDIS delegate confirmed this participant’s NDIS plan was going to be “rolled over” which meant the $5,000 would stay but the whole plan would be topped up to include the original amount that was funded to begin with. Therefore “amount X” + $5,000 would show for this plan from 2022-2024. I asked the lovely delegate on the phone to have a look at the letter that was sent to this nominee and the notes taken on the case from when the mother rang to ask her own questions. This lady was speechless. I kindly asked that NDIA needs to write clearer letters to participant’s that explained properly what the agency means, and provide more training to all call centre staff.

The nominee was so relieved that I could sort this out for her. I just worry about all the other people that were sent the exact same letter and are also having such undue stress about the same situation.

*UPDATE* It’s now October 2023 and there are more changes coming for the NDIS! Stay posted for a new blog that families need to be aware of from the 31st October 2023!