MediHealth Connect provides NDIS plan management on the Gold Coast, from Coomera and Helensvale down to Tugun and up into the hinterland. As a registered plan manager we pay your providers, watch your budgets and keep you informed, so managing your plan stops being a second job.
When your NDIS plan is plan-managed, a registered plan manager takes care of the financial side. Providers invoice the plan manager instead of you, the plan manager checks the invoice against your plan and the NDIS Pricing Arrangements, claims the funds from the NDIA and pays the provider. Choice and control stay with you. You still decide which supports to use, who provides them and when.
What does it cost? Nothing out of your existing budgets. Plan management is funded through its own line, Improved Life Choices, which the NDIA adds to your plan when you ask for it. Your core, capacity building and capital budgets are untouched. Gold Coast participants are sometimes told that plan management eats into their support hours. It does not.
The Gold Coast provider market runs the length of the coast, and invoices arrive in every format imaginable, from a physiotherapy practice in Southport to a support worker who texts a photo of a handwritten invoice from Burleigh. Our plan managers turn all of that into one tidy picture of your plan.
We receive invoices directly from your Gold Coast providers, confirm the support, hours and dates against your plan, and pay them once approved. Choose whether you want to sign off each invoice or let us process the regular ones for you.
Your monthly statement shows what each budget has spent, what is left and whether you are on track for the plan period. Underspending is as important to know about as overspending, because unused funding is a missed opportunity.
Every payment is claimed through the NDIS portal by our team. If the NDIA rejects or delays a claim, we chase it and fix the issue. You never have to deal with the portal unless you want to.
We check each invoice against the current price limits, including the rules for weekend, evening and public holiday rates, travel and cancellations. Anything outside the limits, or outside your plan, is queried before payment.
The three options differ mainly in who does the administration and which providers you can use. Here is how they compare for someone on the Gold Coast.
| Plan-managed | Self-managed | NDIA-managed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Invoices paid by | Your plan manager | You, then claimed back through the portal | The NDIA, to registered providers only |
| Can use unregistered providers | Yes | Yes | No |
| Record keeping | Done for you, with monthly statements | Your responsibility, and auditable | Not needed, but visibility is limited to the portal |
| Price limits apply | Yes | No (you negotiate, but must stay within budget) | Yes |
| Effect on your other budgets | None, funded through Improved Life Choices | None | None |
A large number of Gold Coast providers are unregistered: independent support workers, cleaners and gardeners, private psychologists and dietitians, swim and exercise programs, and small local organisations in the hinterland. NDIA-managed plans cannot pay any of them. Plan-managed plans can, as long as the support is reasonable and necessary and sits within your plan.
That is why so many participants choose plan management. It lets you keep a therapist you already trust, engage a support worker who lives in your suburb rather than an hour up the highway, and find someone with capacity when larger organisations are full. We still check invoices from unregistered providers against the price limits, and we still require a proper invoice with an ABN.
An independent plan manager offers plan management and nothing else. MediHealth Connect is not in that category, and we would rather tell you than have you find out later. Alongside plan management we deliver community nursing on the Gold Coast, Gold Coast support coordination and other services. A participant could therefore have us paying an invoice that we also issued.
Here is how we keep that honest. Our plan management staff sit apart from our nursing and coordination teams. Every MediHealth Connect invoice goes through exactly the same checks as any other provider's. Your statements show our charges line by line. You can use any plan manager you like, you can leave us at any time, and none of our services is ever conditional on using another. If you would prefer a plan manager with no other role in your supports, tell us and we will point you to the NDIS provider finder.
Plan management does not depend on where you live, so we support participants across the whole City of Gold Coast, including the hinterland. If you receive care through Gold Coast Health, including Gold Coast University Hospital at Southport or Robina Hospital, we can have new providers set up for payment before you are discharged.
North: Coomera, Pimpama, Ormeau, Helensvale, Oxenford
Central: Southport, Surfers Paradise, Ashmore, Nerang, Labrador
South: Burleigh Heads, Palm Beach, Robina, Varsity Lakes, Tugun
Hinterland: Tamborine Mountain, Canungra
You can move to a new plan manager at any time during your plan. The process usually takes a couple of weeks and your supports continue throughout.
Not sure whether plan management is right for you? The plan management overview explains the service across South East Queensland, or call us and ask.
No. It is paid from Improved Life Choices, a separate budget that the NDIA adds when you choose plan management. Your core supports, capacity building and capital budgets stay exactly as they were.
Tell your NDIA planner or local area coordinator that you would like to be plan-managed. This can be done at your planning meeting, at a plan review or through a plan variation request part way through a plan. Once Improved Life Choices appears in your plan, you can choose any registered plan manager.
Yes. Plan-managed participants can pay unregistered providers, which covers a lot of the sole-trader support workers, private clinicians and small local businesses on the Gold Coast. The support must be reasonable and necessary and within your plan, and a few support types, such as those involving regulated restrictive practices, must still be delivered by a registered provider.
As soon as an invoice passes our checks against your plan and the NDIS price limits, we claim it and pay the provider. We confirm our current processing times in your service agreement rather than promising a number on a web page. If you have asked to approve invoices first, we wait for your go-ahead.
Yes. There is no waiting period. You give notice to your existing plan manager according to your service agreement, sign up with the new one and the two plan managers agree a handover date. Your plan and budgets do not change.
Yes, the NDIS allows it, although the provider has to manage the conflict of interest properly. At MediHealth Connect the plan management and support coordination teams are separate, our own invoices are checked like everyone else's, and you are always free to use different providers for each role.