How a Plan Manager Helps You Use Your Supports Funding More Effectively
The term “Reasonable and necessary supports” refers to the criteria used to determine if a support is suitable to be funded by the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
In this article, we will explore what ‘reasonable and necessary’ means; and, how a Plan Manager can help you use your NDIS funding more effectively.
What are reasonable and necessary supports?
In the context of the NDIS, reasonable and necessary supports must help participants:
- Pursue their goals,
- Increase their independence,
- Build capacity for and increase participation in the community or workplace.
While this does provide broad guidelines for what will be eligible for funding, it can be confusing and frustrating to navigate exactly what is covered – and what categories these supports fall under.
This is where the value of a Plan Manager comes into play. By working with a Plan Manager, you are benefiting from their knowledge of the NDIS funding structure and process. They can help ensure your funding is used effectively, so you can get the most out of your NDIS budgets.
Plan management also acts as a buffer between you and your providers, protecting your funds from misuse, fraud; even just catching errors in invoicing or budgeting which might create a time-consuming back and forth with the NDIS.
Reasonable and necessary supports checklist
We’ve created a checklist to help clarify your rights, responsibilities, and understanding regarding what the NDIS terms as ‘reasonable and necessary supports.’ This form is designed to assist you in assessing whether a product, support, or service you are considering meets the NDIS criteria:
What does a Plan Manager offer?
Plan management is a great ‘middle ground’ option between self and agency management. You can hand the stress of your plan’s financial administration over, while retaining control over your support choices.
This helps you in your NDIS journey by handling:
- Payment of invoices
- Financial reporting
- Budget tracking
- Service bookings
- Coordination with your providers
Note that this is separate from what a Support Coordinator can do for you, and is funded under a different category.
Related reading: What is NDIS Plan Management (and is it right for me?)
Did you know the NDIS fully funds Plan Management? There are no additional eligibility criteria for NDIS participants. You can switch to Plan Management at any time by notifying your National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) Planner or Local Area Coordinator (LAC).
Streamlining your NDIS process with NDSP
Having an intimate knowledge of support categories and funding is even more important with the rolling update to PACE plans, which has added and adjusted categories to provide a better overall NDIS funding experience for participants and providers.
Plan Management allows a higher level of checks when it comes to invoicing compliance because as your plan manager, NDSP will:
- Handle the invoicing process for you.
- Make sure any invoices sent to the NDIS have undergone internal checks for accuracy and budget compliance.
NDSP Plan Managers act as your bookkeeper, administrator, accountant, and general NDIS funding experts. We track your budget, process invoices from your providers within 3-5 business days, and save you hassle by ensuring invoices submitted for services provided to you meet the NDIS requirements.
Find out more about our invoicing process and turnaround in How We Pay Your Providers: Invoices, Timelines & More.
Understanding the types of supports available
The funding you are eligible for will be earmarked for stated supports or flexible supports. This will affect how you are allowed to use it.
1. Stated Supports
Funding for stated supports can only be spent on the support, item or service as described in your plan. You cannot use or swap out the funding for other supports. If you require a different item or a different version, you must have approval from the NDIS to purchase this instead.
These are sometimes referred to as ‘stated items’ in the NDIS Price Guide. These may require a quote from the provider to be listed in your plan, to show the exact amount you will need for the specified item.
Plan management is an example of a stated support. You can choose who your plan management provider is, but you cannot use the funding allocated for a plan manager in any other area of your NDIS plan.
2. Flexible Supports
As the name suggests, there is a little more leeway with this kind of support. In many cases, your NDIS plan funds have a degree of flexibility where you may choose how to utilise your funds either within a supports budget, or within a specified category.
For example:
- Core Supports funding can be used flexibly. You can use core supports funding across any of the core supports categories as you require, but you cannot use it outside of the overall core supports budget.
- Capacity Building Supports funding is flexible within the specified categories only. You could use it for a range of services within each category, but you could not, as an example, use funds allocated to ‘Finding and Keeping a Job’ to fund support services in the ‘Improved Living Arrangements’ category.
Flexible supports will give you more freedom and choice, but some supports you need may fall understated support categories. Understanding the difference between the two can save a lot of time and energy when trying to navigate your NDIS journey.
For more information about budgets and funding categories, try our helpful NDIS Funding Categories Explained article.
Your Plan Manager’s responsibilities
As an NDIS-funded support and publicly funded service, your plan manager has an obligation to make sure your funds are used correctly. This includes:
- Adhering to the NDIS Pricing Arrangements.
- Ensuring thorough compliance checks to prevent errors, fraud or misuse of funds.
NDSP: Helping with your NDIS Plan
As your experts in plan management, NDSP takes our responsibilities very seriously. We want to make your NDIS journey easier.
We help you to use your funding more effectively through invoice management, budget tracking, record keeping and offering administrative support across your NDIS plan’s financial aspects.
Having transparency and visibility over your NDIS funding is invaluable for avoiding overspending or underspending. With NDSP, you have anytime access to our user-friendly Nappa portal. This gives you your NDIS budget in real time on any device. You can always see exactly what is happening with your NDIS funds, budgets and invoices, in detail.
You can also request a call from our knowledgeable and responsive team. As your plan manager, our team is accessible and more than happy to help should you need to speak to us directly.
Who can benefit from working with NDSP?
NDSP helps both participants and support coordinators to navigate the financial aspects of the NDIS journey smoothly.
For Participants
Have more time and energy to focus on what is important, without the large burden of NDIS plan financial management and tracking.
If you are confused or concerned about using your NDIS funding effectively, contact our team today. We can help ensure your supports align with your plan, and keep you informed every step of the way.
For Support Coordinators
The same tools we use to provide excellent service to our participant clients can also hugely benefit the Support Coordinators we work with. Our 24/7 Nappa portal offers Support Coordinators access to the following for their clients:
- Real-time budget tracking
- Invoice management
- Provider confirmation
- Budget snapshots
- Expenditure reports
This means you can spend less time tracking these things down, and more time helping your client reach their goals.
For help with your participant’s NDIS plan implementation, phone one of our Plan Management specialists on 1800 63 63 77 or email info@ndsp.com.au.
