News

International Day of People with Disability Website launched

A new website has been launched to provide a dedicated information resource for International Day of People with Disability (IDPwD).

www.idpwd.com.au provides general IDPwD information, as well as support resources for planning IDPwD events, frequently asked questions and useful links for people looking for more disability information.

There is also an online registration function for event organisers, and a State by State Event Calendar so people wishing to participate in an IDPwD event can find out what’s on in their local area.

A free promotional pack is available to event organisers who register their event. The pack includes balloons, stickers, button badges, wristbands and posters, to help promote your event and celebrate on the day.

For more information, visit www.idpwd.com.au or email idpwd@outsource.com.au

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Early Case Based Funding payment processing at the end of October

All Case Based Funding payments that are due on either 30 or 31 October 2006 will be processed by FaCSIA two days earlier than usual.  This means that Case Based Funding payments for your clients that fall due on either of these two days will be processed by FaCSIA and deposited into your bank account earlier than usual.  This is an interim measure for October.

If you have any questions please email the Case Based Funding helpdesk or contact them by phone on 1800 034 887.

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Payment Reconciliation on FOFMS

FOFMS has reports available to help you identify and reconcile your FaCSIA payments.  These reports allow service providers to view:

• Payments made against an Agreement.  This report will be useful for larger organisations that have multiple agreement schedules, as it will be broken down by agreement schedule.
• Payment made against an Agreement Schedule.  This report will show you all the payments that have been made in respect of a specific agreement schedule.
• Payments made against a Case.  This report will show you all the payments that have been made in respect of a specific case or multiple cases.

For all reports, you can select a specific period that you're interested in, i.e. one month or a quarter. The Agreement Schedule and Case report will also include the first name and surname of individual clients for whom payments have been made.  All reports have subtotals and totals, are printable, and can be exported to Excel for further manipulation.

You can also use the 'Consolidated Payment Request Line Items' screen view (available under the existing Payment Request view) to help reconcile your payments.  From this screen view, you can query FOFMS for payment details using the IMPACT Clearing Number (the reference number which is provided on your bank statement with each deposit from FaCSIA) as well as the IMPACT Invoice Number (the document number contained on your Recipient Created Tax Invoice).

How do I use these reports?

An information pack to help you use this payment reconciliation functionality is available on the FOFMS Literature site.  Copies were also emailed directly to FOFMS users on 15 March 2006, and hard copies posted to the mailing address recorded in FOFMS for your organisation.  If you have not received your information pack please contact the FOFMS helpdesk on 1800 020 283.

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Feedback from Audit and Compliance Pilot - Client Consent

The recent FaCSIA audit and compliance pilot isolated some issues about the way business services capture client consent.  A client consent information pack, including a form and take away section for the client is attached to the literature site of FOFMS for you to use.  If you chose not to use the FaCSIA client consent form and to incorporate FaCSIA's client consent requirements with your own, it is important that you cover the following FaCSIA requirements accurately:

• The client’s personal information is collected to determine eligibility for disability employment assistance and the kind of assistance and level of funding the client is entitled to.
• The client’s personal information will be provided to the Australian Government, or to another organisation as directed by the Australian Government.
• The client or their advocate has signed and dated the consent form.
• In line with Privacy Principle 2, an officer of your service has explained to the client or their advocate that the client’s personal information provided is collected for the purpose of determining access to and delivery of employment assistance under the Disability Services Act 1986 through a service outlet; and the service outlet will pass some or all of the client’s personal information to the Australian Government, or to another organisation as directed by the Commonwealth

Client consent should be captured either when a client first requests assistance from you or before the Intake Assessment is authorised.  The Intake Assessment should not be authorised until client consent has been captured.

Sections 10.4 and 10.5 of the Funding Agreement provide additional information about client consent. If you have any questions about capturing client consent, you should talk to your State and Territory Contract Manager.

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Continuity of funding when DMI re-assessments are overdue

There are currently a large number of clients who are overdue to have a DMI reassessment completed.  Reassessments are due on the two-year anniversary of when they were first completed.  If the DMI reassessment is not completed, authorised payments will be suspended and the case will ultimately be exited.  The following rules are automated in FOFMS:

• Payments will be suspended if a DMI assessment is not completed after 3 months of the DMI reassessment date; and
• Cases are exited if a DMI reassessment is not completed after 4 months of the DMI reassessment date.

It is your responsibility to monitor DMI assessment and DMI reassessment dates.  If your clients have their payments suspended or their cases exited as a result of DMI assessment or DMI reassessment dates not being met, you will not be back-paid.

You can monitor when your service’s clients are due for a DMI assessment and DMI reassessment by simply using the predefined queries that are built into FOFMS. To access the predefined queries you will need to be in the ‘Cases’ view.  Then, from the ‘Queries’ drop down menu you can select either:

• ‘DMI Reassessment due in 3 months’ - this query will provide you a list of clients whose DMI reassessment date is within the next three months from the current date.  For example if you ran this query on 30 August 2006 it would provide a list of clients that DMI reassessment is due between 30 August 2006 and 30 November 2006.
• ‘Case <3 months past reassessment due date’ - this query will provide you a list of clients who's DMI reassessment date is within the previous three months from the current date.  For example if you ran this query on 30 August 2006 it would provide a list of clients that DMI reassessment is due between 1 June 2006 and 30 August 2006.  These clients will soon have their payments suspended or be exited if a DMI reassessment is not completed and authorised.

You should run these queries each month to help you monitor and plan your services DMI reassessment workload.

If your clients are exited because a DMI assessment or DMI reassessment was not completed and authorised within the due dates, you will need to contact the FOFMS Helpdesk to request that the case status be reset to 'Return from Suspension'.  Once the case status is reset you will have one month to complete and authorise the required assessment.  If the required assessment is not completed within that one-month period the case will be exited again and you will need to create a new case.  You will also need to complete and authorise an Intake Assessment to receive payments for supporting this client.

To help you monitor DMI assessment and re-assessment dates, FOFMS also auto-generates an activity to notify case workers, that a DMI reassessment is due.  You need to ensure that you keep the case worker current in FOFMS otherwise the notifying activity will be sent to the wrong person.

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