Written by: Edwina Wilkens l Marketing + Business Development Manager for Canny Plan Management
When it comes to checking the spelling of a word you’re not too sure about, you don’t go to the dictionary – you go to your mum! When you’re sitting there blankly because someone has just dropped a word that you have no idea what it means even when used in context, you call your mum to find out what on earth they were talking about. When it comes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, commonly known as the NDIS, it’s no different. You still turn to your mum for a little bit of help. We want you to understand completely and not have any doubt in your mind when it comes to the NDIS, introducing; Your NDIS Dictionary – NDIS Plan Management l Canny Group.
Think of Canny Plan Management as being that person for you, the person that you go to for help when it comes to your NDIS Plan and ensuring that you have the best supports in place for you to help you reach and achieve your goals.
Understanding the NDIS can be a little the same as facing your fears of spiders – scary, and just simply – not going to happen unless your mum is there to deal with the “the situation”. Life is complicated enough – right!? We wanted to help to ensure that when it comes to the NDIS that you understand as much as possible, so we have put together some of the top used terms to make sure that you are on the right path!
Here are some of the most used NDIS terms that we will take you through;
- Plan Management
- LAC
- Informal Supports
- Goals
- Plan Review
- Service Booking
- Service Agreement
- Support Categories
- Choice & Control
- Reasonable & Necessary
Manage Your Plan: Plan Management
(Canny) Plan Management
One of three ways that you can have your NDIS Plan Managed (as well as self-managed and agency-managed, or a combination of the three!)
NDIS Plan Management gives you the freedom of choosing unregistered providers as well as registered providers which is the same as self-management however you get the bonus prize of not having to keep records and receipts (because when you are plan managed by Canny Plan Management your chosen registered NDIS Plan Management provider – we do it all for you) unlike being agency managed which means you need to keep all documentation of records and receipts.
LAC + Other Support Workers
LAC (Local Area Coordinator)
When it comes to building your plan and putting the pieces of it together with you, there can be three important people that will be part of this process;
- LAC (Local Area Coordinator)
- ECEO (Early Childhood Early Intervention) Practitioner *if applicable
- NDIS Planner
It is a mixture of the above important people that are not only help you to build your plan but also agree to your goals as well as the budgets set out in your plan to make sure that they work for you.
NDIS Management Help with Informal Supports
This is support that is seen as the support a person with a disability is already receiving from family and friends. The informal support provided by parents, brothers and sisters and other family members is vitally important to people with disabilities – just as it is for you and me!
In addition to the supports that are already being provided, the close relationships that NDIS participants have with the people who provide this informal support can also be highly important as these are the people that participants know and trust.
Your LAC, ECEI or NDIS Planner will consider all the informal supports you already have in place during your Plan Review – for example, your parents may already take you to do your grocery shopping on a weekly basis.
Setting + Managing Your NDIS Goals
Everyone has goals in life – for people with disabilities, this is no different. Your NDIS Plan will include some goals that you have set out and agreed that you would like to work towards to achieve during the lifetime of your NDIS Plan.
The goals will are specific and personal to you and your disability and they may not be and don’t have to be related to each other. For example;
GOAL ONE // “I want to learn how to prepare for a job interview and to improve my resume writing skills, so I can apply to get a job by myself”
GOAL TWO // “I would like to be able to get the bus to school on my own without support”
Plan Review
When you and a LAC, ECEI or NDIS Planner meet to discuss what you want and need to be included in your next plan as well as the goals you want to set out to achieve and how you’re going to achieve them.
Plan Reviews can be scheduled, generally towards the end of your current plan or unscheduled like smack bang in the middle of your plan if it happens to be that your situation or needs have changed. Your Plan Review is the time when you can choose to have your plan as NDIS Plan Managed – like with Canny Plan Management!
Canny Plan Management make it easy for you when it comes to your plan review as we are able to help you prepare for this meeting, by providing you with financial reports on your funding from your current plan to see how they tracked over the course of its lifetime. Being able to show and have evidence that you needed extra funding to be able to reach your goals or perhaps it was that you didn’t spend all of the allocated funding because your goals were reached!
Either way, we are here to help you be prepared and prepare you for your NDIS Plan Review
Service Agreement
When you come on board with Canny Plan Management, you sign a service agreement which is a document between you and us as your registered NDIS Plan Management team. It is a document where you agree to the service that we are providing to you.
Generally, you will have service agreements between yourself and each of your providers that state what services they are going to be providing to you as well as how much it will cost you.
These are useful documents so both parties know what is expected of each other and there is no confusion from the get go!
Service Booking For Your NDIS Plan
A Service Booking relates back to your signed service agreement that you have with your chosen providers. Service Bookings are used to set aside funding from your plan for the service agreements for services to be provided over the lifetime of your NDIS plan.
With Canny Plan Management as your registered NDIS Plan Management provider, we will make a service booking on the portal on your behalf, which allows us as your plan manager to claim payment from the NDIS for all services and supports that have been approved in your plan. Put simply, it allows us to be able to pay your invoices for you and monitor your spending.
Help To Manage Your Funding Through Your Support Categories
Your NDIS budget will be split into Support Categories. You can use your funds within each support category on specific services or line items.
Supports and services for NDIS participants fall into three categories: core, capital and capacity building.
- CORE; a support that helps a participant complete daily living activities
- CAPITAL; a support for an investment, such as assistive technologies, equipment and home or vehicle modifications, or funding for capital costs (to pay for Specialist Disability Accommodation for example)
- CAPACITY BUILDING; a support that helps a participant build their independence and skills
Supports and services that are delivered for the participants that have been approved for NDIS funding are there to help with who have disabilities have the same thing in life as every other person living without a disability. For example, somewhere to live, a job, hobbies and the company of family and friends.
NDIS Participant has Choice + Control
A key term that you will hear frequently that puts you in control for the supports that you receive. It means that you can have as much of an input as you want over who, how, when and what supports you receive.
As per the Overview of the NDIS Operational Guideline; People with a disability have the same right as every other member of the Australian society to be able to determine their own best interests, including the right to exercise choice and control, and to engage as equal partners in decisions that will affect their lives, to the full extent of their capacity (section 4(8)).
Reasonable + Necessary NDIS Budgets
When an NDIS Planner, LAC or ECEI is helping to build your plan with you, the supports that are funded will be deemed ‘reasonable and necessary’ to your individual situation. They will assess whether a support is:
- Related to your disability
- Value for money
- Likely to be effective in helping you to reach your goals in your plan
What is considered reasonable and necessary for one NDIS participant, may not be considered for another. This is because each person with a disability is not the same and the goals that they are working towards are personalised to the individual. During your planning session, we recommend that you have a conversation with your NDIS Planner as to why you feel you need the supports you are requesting and specifically how they will assist you in reaching your goals.
National Disability Insurance Agency help, via Canny Plan Management
Every day the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is changing and improving to better the lives for people living with disabilities. Canny Group have been helping to assist our community for over 61 years now and with the introduction of Canny Plan Management, we wanted to ensure that we were helping every person within our community, with or without a disability.
We are proud to put the participant first and base our services around their wants and needs.
Get in touch today to find out how Canny Plan Management can be your NDIS Plan Management providers to let you get back to reaching and achieving your goals.
