Lived Experience Forum

[eth]

Hi @Queenie  do you have a coordinator of supports as well?  Either they or your plan manager should be able to chase up invoices if you give them a contact phone number for your service providers.  I've had one organisation not send an invoice until this week, 6 months into my plan.  It makes it impossible to calculate how much you have left in your budget and how many hours you are able to get per week.  Good luck sorting it out.  We shouldn't have to stay on top of this if we have a plan manager and/or CoS.  It makes me cranky.  There are so many people who simply wouldn't be able to follow it up.

Hope your supports are working well from you in other ways, that you are progressing on your goals, even if in small ways like me.

[Queenie]

Hey @eth, it makes me cranky as well. I wasn't funded for CoS just plan management, so I have to remember to stay on top of everything. My carer refuses to have diddly squat to do with NDIS stuff so has left it up to me to coordinate everything. 

[eth]

That's harsh from your carer @Queenie  I feel for you.

Your plan manager should be chasing up invoices for you and also sending you a monthly budget report that shows what you have left in each category of your plan and what your weekly spend can be.  But that won't be accurate unless the invoices are up to date.

[Queenie]

I guess the reason why my carer refuses to do any NDIS stuff is because she doesn't understand it @eth. You should have seen the rigmarole I had to go through just to complete my companion card application! I was trying to explain to my psychiatrist that it isn't a good idea I go shopping alone as I have a tendency to be taken advantage of by shopkeepers and charity workers. Once when I went to the city for an appointment I came back depressed and anxious because I had been swindled out of almost my entire pension by charity workers (which I later found out were being paid on comission of donations much to my disgust). I end up thinking these people are being friendly and are genuinely interested in me, how wrong could I be! 

Do you have a companion card eth?

[eth]

No I don't have one @Queenie.  I have thought of applying for one but not done it yet.  The rigmarole of proving permanence after battling to get it accepted by NDIS has just seemed overwhelming to date.  It's good that you have one.  So far I do all my outings with support workers anyway.

[Alone]

Hi  Eth, 

Thank you for asking, sorry for the delayed response I didnt see the notification.   I applied in January last year, got rejected in June, and appealed a few days later and am still waiting to hear.

It's not going well.  I don't have anyone helping me.  Just before Christmas there was a glitch on the mygov website that showed me as having to reapply for my dsp.  Its been sorted now thankfully, but at the time I panicked and emailed my HACC support co-ordinator because my carers have been unpredictable (I need help with making phone calls, but my carer at the time barely speaks English and I couldnt understand her) asking for help, and saying I have no-one (which she knows). 

My co-ordinator said that she'd come out and see me after Christmas.  She came out with another carer, plus her manager, and they had a meeting that she hadnt warned me about and started telling me that they wont be there to help me in the future and they wont help me get on the NDIS, but if I get a plan they'll be at the planning meeting.  It was horrid.  They were talking fast and I couldnt keep up, and everytime I said anything they talked over me.   I wasnt prepared for the stuff they were talking about and couldnt say or do a thing.  

Then my coordinator told me off for needing someone to make phone calls for me, and said that "She wouldnt do it" and said "Its a waste of government money".   I felt so humiliated.   At one stage her manager looked at the coordinator and then at me and said "she's like this at work too".  

The coordinator was sooo disrespectful of me. She's never talked to me about why I dont make phone calls, she just decided that it wasnt okay.  Eventually, the coordinator was going to keep going but her manager stopped her and they finally left when I was so speechless I couldnt say anything.   

I'm so hurt.  I was going so well and she has just destroyed my confidence.  Its not her place to decide which bits of my disability I should be working on, I get that sort of stuff all the time with people telling me off for having a problem.  I'm not just lazy and stupid.

I've got noone at all helping me with the NDIS.  My doctor doesnt understand it and doesnt have time to help.  I dont have family & friends to help, its just me.  

I want to change support companies now, but I'm scared to talk to anyone because I know I'll get the same attitude.  I was doing so well

[Alone]

I am alone.

[Alone]

I finally got accepted.  Everyone was saying that I would have to see a psychologist and get a current report, or see someone else and get some report.   And I got an advocate and she was saying I would have to start over again, but I asked her to ring and see where my review was.  She explained to me that they would most likely give a standard response, but I pushed her to ring ... and before she did any advocating they said they had sent an acceptance letter the day before.

My evidence was my application for the dsp in 1994 and the psychiatrist reports that went with it, a letter from my gp, and a letter from my boss.  Thats all.  It took 18 months, and was mostly done by me via email just being honest about my life but no mental health people needed to be involved.