Govt commissions review into NDIS system glitches
Insists payment issues are now fixed.
The federal government will commission an independent review into data migration issues with its new NDIS claims portal that saw many disability services providers left unpaid for weeks.
The national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) kicked off its three-year transition to full operation last month, but suffered a number of early teething pains caused by a problematic migration of data from old disability payments systems to the new ‘myplace’ payments portal.
Health and care providers can lodge claims directly with myplace when they deliver services to NDIS recipients, many of whom have their entitlements managed on their behalf by the National Disability Insurance Agency.
According to The Australian, some service providers were even forced to turn NDIS customers away because they were not receiving any money from the government for their work.
Social Services Minister Christian Porter has insisted that the problems - which were the result of missing financial data during the incomplete migration - have now been resolved.
“The [NDIA] has now advised that the main issues have been rectified and outstanding payment requests are being prioritised," he said in a statement.
“However, while the government has now been assured the central issues have been resolved, it is now appropriate that a full review is conducted to determine how and why the problems arose so we can be confident that they will not re-occur."
The independent review is due to be complete by the end of this month.
News of the inquiry was publicly welcomed by NDIA CEO David Bowen, who said his agency would continue to add new users to the system until it reached all 460,000 eligible NDIS customers.
“In this period of transition from trial to full scheme rollout, the agency will continue to build a solid foundation to ensure the [NDIS] delivers for all Australians for generations to come,” Bowen said.