Looking for NDIS plan management in Brisbane? MediHealth Connect is a registered plan manager. We pay your providers, keep your budgets on track and send you statements you can actually read, so you can spend your energy on your goals rather than on invoices.
Plan management is one of three ways to handle the money in your NDIS plan. A plan manager is a registered provider who receives invoices from your other providers, checks them against your plan and the NDIS Pricing Arrangements, claims the money from the NDIA and pays the provider. You keep full say over which supports you buy and who delivers them. The plan manager looks after the accounting side.
The cost matters less than most people expect. Plan management is funded as a separate line in your plan under Improved Life Choices. The NDIA adds it on top of your other budgets when you ask for it, which means it does not reduce the money available for nursing, therapy, support workers or anything else. If you would like plan management, you say so at your planning meeting or plan review and it is added at no cost to your other supports.
Plan managers in Brisbane handle a large volume of invoices from a very wide provider market, from major allied health practices in the inner city to sole-trader support workers in the outer suburbs. Our job is to make sure every one of those invoices is correct before it is paid, and to keep you informed without burying you in paperwork.
Providers send their invoices straight to us. We match each one to a support in your plan, check the hours and dates, and pay it once it passes. You can ask to approve invoices before payment or let us handle routine ones automatically.
Each month you receive a plain-language statement showing what has been spent in each budget, what remains and how that compares with where you are in the plan period. If a budget is running fast or slow, we say so early.
We lodge claims through the NDIS portal on your behalf, follow up rejected or delayed claims and sort out the paperwork when a claim does not go through the first time. You do not need to log in to the portal yourself.
Every invoice is compared with the current price limits and the rules for the support item. If a provider has charged above the limit, or for a support your plan does not cover, we contact them and you before anything is paid.
Each option suits different people. The table below sets out the practical differences for a Brisbane participant deciding how to manage their next plan.
| Plan-managed | Self-managed | NDIA-managed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who pays invoices | Your plan manager | You, then you claim back | The NDIA pays registered providers directly |
| Registered providers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Unregistered providers | Yes | Yes | No |
| Your admin | Very little | All of it: records, claims, reconciliation | Very little |
| Cost to your other budgets | None (funded separately) | None | None |
| Visibility of spending | Monthly statements and on request | Your own records | Portal only |
Brisbane has thousands of NDIS providers, and a good share of them are not registered with the NDIS Commission. That includes many excellent sole-trader support workers, cleaners, gardeners, private allied health clinicians and small community organisations. If your plan is NDIA-managed you cannot use any of them. If you are plan-managed you can, provided the support is reasonable and necessary and is covered by your plan.
That freedom is one of the main reasons people choose plan management. It widens the pool of people you can work with in your suburb, it lets you keep a therapist you already trust who has decided not to register, and it makes it easier to find someone with capacity when the larger registered organisations have waiting lists. We still check that unregistered providers meet their obligations, and we still hold them to the price limits.
Some plan managers do nothing but plan management. MediHealth Connect is different, and we want to be upfront about it. As well as plan management we deliver community nursing, support coordination and other supports across Brisbane. That means a participant could, in theory, have us as their plan manager and also as one of their providers.
We manage this openly. Plan management sits with a separate team from our clinical and coordination staff. Our plan managers apply the same checks to a MediHealth Connect invoice as to any other, you always see what we have charged, and you are free to use another plan manager or to move your plan management elsewhere at any time. Nobody at MediHealth Connect will ever suggest that using one of our services depends on using another. If you would rather your plan manager had no other relationship with you, we will say so and help you find one.
Because plan management is delivered by phone, email and secure online tools, we can look after participants right across Brisbane City Council's area, from Sandgate in the north to Inala in the south-west and Wynnum on the bay. Our office is at Darra in Brisbane's west if you prefer to meet in person.
North: Chermside, Aspley, Stafford, Nundah, Sandgate
South: Mt Gravatt, Sunnybank, Carindale, Runcorn
Inner: West End, New Farm, Woolloongabba, Kelvin Grove
West: Indooroopilly, Toowong, Kenmore, Jindalee, Inala
East: Wynnum, Manly, Bulimba, Cannon Hill
Many of our Brisbane plan-managed participants also receive care through Metro North Health or Metro South Health services, including the Royal Brisbane and Women's, Princess Alexandra, Prince Charles and QEII Jubilee hospitals. If you are leaving hospital with new supports in your plan, we can set up the providers' payment details before your first appointment so nothing is delayed.
Changing plan managers is simpler than most participants expect, and you can do it at any point in your plan.
If you also use NDIS support coordination in Brisbane, your coordinator can help with the changeover. Participants receiving community nursing in Brisbane often choose to have the two arranged together so that nursing invoices are handled without any extra steps.
No. Plan management is funded under Improved Life Choices, which is a separate budget added specifically to pay for it. Using a plan manager does not reduce the funding you have for support workers, nursing, therapy or any other support in your plan.
Ask for it. At your planning meeting or plan review, tell your NDIA planner or local area coordinator that you want your plan to be plan-managed. They add the Improved Life Choices funding. If you are part way through a plan and it is not there, you can ask for a plan variation or wait until the next review.
Yes. Plan-managed participants can use both registered and unregistered providers, which opens up many sole traders, small businesses and private clinicians across Brisbane. The support still has to be reasonable and necessary and within your plan. The only exceptions are supports that the NDIS rules require a registered provider to deliver, such as those involving regulated restrictive practices.
We check and pay invoices as soon as they pass our review against your plan and the NDIS price limits. We will explain our current processing times when you sign your service agreement, and your providers can contact us directly about any invoice. If you want to approve invoices before payment, we hold them until you have done so.
Yes. You are not locked in. Give your current plan manager notice under your service agreement, sign up with the new plan manager and we coordinate the handover date so every invoice is paid once. Your NDIS funding stays exactly the same.
It is allowed, and some participants prefer having one organisation they know. MediHealth Connect provides both, so we keep the plan management team separate from the coordination team, apply the same invoice checks to our own services as to anyone else's, and make it clear that you can use a different plan manager or support coordinator whenever you want.