The Australian Government have made changes to the NDIS Act.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Participant Service Guarantee and other measures) Act 2022 is here to help make the NDIS process easier for participants and their families.
What will these changes mean for my NDIS plan?
The changes to the NDIS Act should reduce the red tape, increase flexibility and set clear decision timeframes for participants.
When do these changes start?
From Friday, 1 July 2022.
Here is a summary of the changes:
- Changes to what we call plan reviews. They will now be called “plan reassessments.”
- In some situations, when a participant asks for a change to their plan, the NDIA may make the changes without replacing the plan with a new one. This will be called a plan variation. Hopefully this makes the process of changing a plan easier, especially when a participant’s situation changes.
- The Participant Service Guarantee will set timeframes for the NDIA to make decisions- for example the NDIA have 21 days to respond to a request for plan variation or reassessment.
- Updates to the Act to make sure conditions (like psychosocial disability) are recognised as episodic or fluctuating while considering permanent disabilities when first accessing the NDIS.
- To maintain participant’s rights to make decisions the NDIA can remove plan nominees if they are no longer legal guardians or no longer have the power to make decisions on the participant’s behalf.
- Greater representation of disability at the NDIA by considering people with disability or lived experience of disability as NDIA board members and appointing a Principle Member to the Independent Advisory Council.
- More transparency about the operations of the NDIA Board.
Remember, the NDIA cannot change your plan without talking with you first. The changes to the NDIA Act have been put in place to make the NDIS a smoother, more transparent and participant focused scheme.
The NDIA have released information about the changes to the NDIS laws here: https://www.ndis.gov.au/news/7975-2022-ndis-legislation-amendments-july-update#summary
The information in this article is correct up to the date of publishing: 06/07/22