The mother of an eight-year-old boy with severe autism has detailed her “exhausting” administrative battle for NDIS funding while recovering from breast cancer as her son became physically aggressive.
The AAT, when functioning well, provides a review that is new and independentfrom the original decision maker. The AAT protects individuals against questionable government decisions. But for many NDIS participants over the past 6 months, the process has been terribly broken. Last week, a case before the federal court has offered relief to participants caught in a sticky bureaucratic mess.
‘In respect of AAT cases, of course they are not precedent setting; they are individual cases relevant specifically to the facts of the particular matter, unlike Federal Court cases…’
With independent assessments soon to become compulsory for National Disability Insurance Scheme participants, advocates are speaking out about major flaws in the process, which will prevent people from directly appealing a decision.
The family of a disabled Brisbane man says he was left without support funding for five weeks after the National Disability Insurance Scheme took months to review his case.
In considering any care plan for a participant careful attention should be given to the relevant categories of supports. In short those support categories include core supports, capacity building and capital supports. Having a good understanding of the funding structure and the way in which these support areas can be utilised is extremely important when preparing plans in order to minimise the risk that it might be reviewed.
The Tribunal has emphasised that if the NDIA thinks that the information provided to it by an Applicant about their disability is insufficient, then the NDIA is under an obligation to seek further information from them.
More than 75% of people with disabilities across Australia last year did not have legal representation at their NDIS appeals, according to data obtained under freedom of information from the AAT, which reviews government administrative decisions. While people with disabilities are attending their NDIS appeals without any legal representation, the NDIA uses up to three lawyers to represent it in one tribunal hearing.
Under the administrative review system that allows people to challenge government decisions, NDIS participants who have been denied supports and applicants who have been denied access to the scheme can appeal to the tribunal. While few people with disabilities are legally represented in these cases, new figures provided to the Senate show increasingly they face the prospect of negotiating with or facing off against lawyers from top private firms.
“Participants have reported they have spent thousands of dollars chasing assessments to show their functional capacity and some Australians cannot afford the same access to professionals as others.”
In a recent decision the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has commented on the NDIA’s use of an independent assessor, stating “this type of therapist is not appropriately qualified” and that the assessor’s understanding was mistaken.
A Melbourne woman who has been on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) for three years says it is too easy for money to be incorrectly taken from participants.
The report, released this week by Ombudsman Michael Manthorpe, focuses on the agency’s handling of requests for assistive technologies and is part of several reviews by the Ombudsman into the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Since the NDIS was rolled out in 2013, the number of complaints about the agency received by the Commonwealth Ombudsman has increased each year.
Access to stable, adequate income support can represent a significant improvement to the quality of life of vulnerable Australians. The DSP provides income support for people who cannot work due to permanent illness, injury, or disability, but getting it is challenging. DSP eligibility criteria is complex and success often depends on the quality of supporting medical evidence.
The DSP Help resource aims to help DSP applicants and the people who support them understand what is required, how to get suitable medical evidence, and how to approach an application.
Federal court decisions are really important because they help us to understand what the NDIS principle of “reasonable and necessary” means in the real world. From what we have seen from court decisions so far (including this one) reasonable and necessary is very specific to the person’s disability and their unique situation.