What is self managed

  My name is Wadhi (Wally), my wife Aida and I have 2 adult girls Jenni and Alana on the NDIS program, 

We have been talking about Self-Managed for years, trying to get our heads around how it works and will it work for our girls, and just as important as the girls it needs to work for us as parents and guardians.

My Wife Aida has been looking after and managing the girl’s day programs, services and O/Ts as Plan Managed, it takes time and effort to stay on top of things at the same time keep up with the ongoing changes the NDIS keeps throw at us. My involvement was minimal as I was self-employed and looked after my own bookkeeping and administration. 

My involvement with the girl’s plans was minimal, I usually get involved when major changes to our girls’ daily program, once or twice a year. 

I often overhear Aida’s phone conversations suggesting that we should self manage our girls, it will give us more flexibility with the support and care of the girls. We tossed up ideas with pro's and con's for not only Self managed but Agency and Plan Managed as well. I started talking to other families, friends, service providers and carers. It took about 8 months for Aida and I to finally agreed on one thing, there are other options and avenues out there that may work better for our girls and us as a family.

Around January 2019 we finally took our first step to Agency Managed, It took a few months to get our heads around Agency Managed. The model of Agency Managed works grate, but unfortunately the Agency was not as user-friendly as we thought for us.

Agency Managed lasted around 6 months before we realised, we are doing all the hard work and the agency was just collecting a hefty commission for claiming and transferring the funds on our behalf. We started researching the difference between Agency and Self Managed. We worked out in our current situation we were doing 95+% of Self Managed, how hard would it be to take on the last 5%? 

I calculated what the 5% would represent and I came up with, "Claiming Funds" from our girls plans, taking out there commission and depositing the balance into the girl’s bank account, how hard could that be when we’re managing everything else. 

We asked the question to the Agency “what do we get for the ongoing commission”, “Nothing more than what we already have provided”. 

I could not justify paying the ongoing commission of 10% for basically fund transferring. We then decided to go the next step. Self-Managed it was the final step to where we wanted to be and the savings from Agency Managed made the change sweeter for our girls care.

                   Good-by “Agency Managed” and Hello Self Managed!

With our story, we can guide anyone who's looking beyond Plan or Agency Managed,