Webinar video: Process overview

Good afternoon everyone.

My name's Alex Lewis.

I'm the Assistant Commissioner for Data Change and Program Management here at the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.

I'm really excited to be with you this afternoon to talk a little bit about the new provider portal coming a little later this year.

I've got quite a full session this afternoon, so I know there are still people trickling into the meeting, but we will make a start and welcome those who can join us in the next few minutes from their previous meetings, or maybe grabbing a little bit of lunch.

I'd like to begin the session today by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands upon which we're meeting.

For me, that's the Ngunnawal people here in beautiful Canberra.

It's a crisp winter's day down here and I'd like to just pause for a moment and acknowledge elders past, present and emerging of the custodians of all of the lands upon which we're all collectively gathering here today.

I'd also like to acknowledge all people with lived experience of disability and the experience of people who support people with disabilities.

Just a little bit of housekeeping for the session today.

There are closed captions available in Microsoft Teams.

If you navigate to the three

in the top menu bar, you can go to more language and speech and turn on live captions there.

We've also got our wonderful Auslan interpreters online with us today.

We are recording the session this afternoon and just to protect everyone's privacy, we've turned off the chat and QA functions while we are recording the session.

We do encourage feedback on the content we're covering today or more broadly on the data and regulatory transformation program that we're talking about.

The email address to provide that feedback is NQSC.program@ndiscommission.gov.au.

If you've got any questions or feedback, please do reach out to us there and we will use those to fill out the frequently asked questions resource in our provider toolkit, which I will talk a little bit more about later on in the session.

For today, we're going to take a first look at the new provider portal and then a range of my colleagues up with us this afternoon who are going to talk a little bit about reportable incidents and unauthorised restrictive practises, lodgement of behaviour, support plans and monthly reporting, and a bit about the registration process.

And then finally, I'll come back and talk to you about the provider toolkit and next steps.

So today is about giving you a first look at the new provider portal.

It's a single external portal that will bring together registrations, portable incidents and the lodgement of behaviour support plans.

It will replace the current provider portal and there's a few key messages out of the session today that we want you to leave with.

Our regulatory role isn't changing.

What is changing is the portal that you use to discharge your obligations and engage with the Commission and key.

We want you to understand the resources that will become progressively available over the next weeks and months in the lead up to go-live for the new portal.

The portal's part of our broader digital transformation and it will deliver some exciting benefits and we'll talk about those in some more detail today.

But the headlines, as you can see there on the screen, are reducing administrative burden, streamlining third party reporting and ultimately improving participant safety.

Some of the things we're doing in the portal to deliver those benefits are making greater use of pre-filled information.

So we've got integrations with a range of external data sources, the Australian Business Register, the National Worker Screening Database, that will allow us to prefill more information for you and speed up some of those administrative processes.

We're also rolling out more dynamic, better tailored forms that adapt to the responses you've given to earlier questions and won't force you to answer questions that aren't relevant to the situation that you are reporting or providing information about.

We know that one of the pain points with the current system is that you can't save things and come back to them for later.

So the new system will allow you to create a draught, go and get the more information that you need, and then come back and finishing, finish it before submission.

There'll be improved dashboards to support you to see what's going on in terms of submitted reports, draughts reporting that might be upcoming or overdue.

We think this will help manage some of the volume and will be a key difference between the new portal and the current portal.

We've also simplified and enhanced a range of upload functionality to make it easier for you to give us the additional information we need in order to deal with the matter in front of us swiftly and efficiently.

So just to recap, the key change that we're talking about today is a new portal coming in Q3 where you'll be able to manage reportable incidents, unauthorised restrictive practises, the lodgement of behaviour support plans and registrations.

But what's not changing is any of your obligations as a provider or the Commission's regulatory role.

I'm gonna pause now and we're gonna play a short video to give you a sense of the look and feel of the new provider portal.

This video will give you a just a short preview.

It only runs for a couple of minutes of how the system looks, some of the capabilities that will be in there.

The video is also available on our website.

So if you want to have another look later on or share it with colleagues who weren't able to join us this afternoon, please feel free to do so.

The video will play through Microsoft Teams for us all now, please, if you do have any technical difficulties, sit tight.

It runs for about two to three minutes and then we'll be back to jump into some of the more detail across each of those functional areas in the new portal.

Well, folks, hopefully the video was a good way to get a little bit of a sneak peek into what's coming.

And then you provider portal.

I'm going to throw to my colleague Jo now, who is going to talk to us in a little bit more detail about reportable incidents and the capabilities that will be in the new portal.

Over to you, Jo.

Thanks so much, Alex, and hello everybody.

My name's Jo Bonney and I'm one of the subject matter experts working on the reportable incidents submission form.

Today I'll be talking about some of the high-level improvements that we'll be introducing to our system when you are submitting reportable incidents.

And I'd also really like to take this opportunity to provide you with some helpful tips about how you can best prepare yourselves for this transition.

So we have some new tailored questions that you will notice on the form.

We've streamlined our reporting process and tailored our questions so that we can ask you the questions that are relevant to the circumstances and the reportable incident category that you have selected.

If you are reporting an incident about the death of a participant or the use of an unauthorised restrictive practise, the form will take you on a different path.

This will help to ensure that you are not spending your time answering questions that are not relevant to that category.

We have introduced new subcategories and clauses, so by adding the new selections of subcategories and causes to our incident notification process, it will assist us to better understand the circumstances of the incident and provide for a more effective and timely safeguarding response.

We have redesigned the way that our 24 hour and 5 day reporting works.

So if you have the information available to you and appropriate action has been taken and there's no outstanding risk to the participants or others, you will be able to select to continue at the time of your 24 hour report to also complete the associated questions for the submission of the five day report.

Of course, you can still submit your 24 hour report if you need more time to go ahead and manage with the incident.

We're going to be introducing third party reporting to the portal.

This is a new feature for us and so in the situation that you have information relating to incidents that have occurred during the provision of supports and services of another registered provider, you will be able to submit a quick and easy third-party report directly through to us.

We've identified some of the more commonly asked questions that we receive in relation to reportable incidents and we've added some helpful links to the form.

And we will also have some really fabulous guidance that we'll be able to assist you through the reporting process.

And lastly, for this slide, we've created a better way to share information and for you to be able to provide us with updates.

Currently, we rely on email to correspond with you and we'll be replacing that with requests for information that you'll be able to respond to directly on the portal.

You'll also be able to notify us of any new or updated information by clicking a single button on the case.

So the benefits to you, there will be better management of your reportable incidents.

You'll be able to identify the reports that you have submitted easily and respond to any requests for additional information that we have sent you.

You'll be able to see the stage that each of your reports or requests is AT and identify when the reportable incidents team have completed their review.

Of course, the Commission may continue to take further action or may require further information from you even after the reportable incident review is completed.

Participant and worker information is going to be easier to provide to us.

We will be using the information that you have already supplied us to pre-populate the names and contact details for your workers and also for your participants.

You will not need to enter these details each time you submit a report, but you will need to keep them up to date for us.

And we've received feedback from many of our providers that the questions didn't always relate to the details of the incident and the mandatory fields needed to be completed even when they're not applicable.

So add new smart form users conditional logic so that you will be asked the questions that relate to the circumstances that you are telling us about.

We have increased the number of mandatory fields on our forms.

So without adding any additional burden to you, what we want to be able to do is assist you to provide us with the information that we will need the first time and therefore we will reduce the number of requests for information that we send to you.

We've introduced more check boxes and pick lists so you can tell us about your incident more efficiently and without the need to provide us with copious amounts of free text.

But if you still do have more detail to tell us, or you don't feel that the form has quite captured the specifics of your incident, we have also provided multiple opportunities for you to add free text.

We understand sometimes an incident may appear reportable in the first incidents.

However, as you understand the circumstances or learn more about the incident, you can determine that it is no longer reportable.

Sometimes you may have been proactive and you may have already started a report that you then determine isn't reportable.

So we have introduced an automatic function to delete your draught report after 30 days.

This will hopefully help you to clear and keep unblock some of those unused reports.

URP Reporting Our current reporting system requires the submission of a 24 hour URP report prior to submitting the five day report.

As we all know, the rules only require a URP report to be submitted at 5 days.

So to provide a better and more efficient way to tell us about the uses of a URP, we've now ensured that when you are telling us about the use of a URP, you will only need to submit a single five day report.

And lastly, third party reporting.

So we've introduced a new third party report whereby you can tell us about incidents that you know to have occurred with another registered provider.

The form is designed to be easy for you to complete.

It consists of 12 quick questions and as we know, you may not always have a lot of information about those allegations.

We have therefore removed many of the mandatory fields.

We will encourage you to submit your third party allegations via the portal and avoid the need for you to send us an email.

Of course, if the provider that you are telling your telling us about isn't registered or the matter is not reportable, you can still lodge a complaint with us via the website.

So some things that might help you to get ready and prepare for the transition.

We would strongly recommend that you take some time prior to the transition date to review any of the draught reports that you have in the existing portal and work towards submitting these as applicable.

If you find that you do have any 24 hour reports that have been submitted and you are ready to submit the five day report, we would recommend that you do that.

You will be able to continue with your reporting in the new system.

However, we do acknowledge that some providers may have a preference to start and finish their reporting in the single system.

And lastly, preparing your team.

The new reportable incident submission form will look and feel different.

While it's efficient and it is really easy to use, we do recommend that you familiarise yourself and your teams with the guidance material early.

As Alex mentioned, there will be guidance material available and he'll be talking to that a little bit later today.

Thanks everybody and I'll hand back to you now, Alex.

Thanks, Jo.

Appreciate the overview of what's coming in the new reportable incidents capabilities.

Really exciting to see and hear some of those key changes that we've made.

I'm gonna hand now to my colleague Michael, who's gonna talk to us a little bit about what's in the behaviour support plans and associated monthly reportings parts of the new system.

Over to you, Michael.

Thanks, Alex.

So I'll be taking us through some a bit of a summary of the key changes in relation to providers that need to lodge behaviour support plans that contain restrictive practises, upload authorisation information about those restrictive practises and complete monthly reports as well.

So there's quite a few things that we've looked at.

So firstly, in the lodgement process of a behaviour support plan, we've removed a lot of the data fields that weren't particularly helpful and have pulled it back to a more minimum set of data.

We are looking at changing the restrictive practise subtypes and making those clearer and more meaningful.

And there will be additional guidance released in the future that provide definitions of those new subtypes.

We'll be changing the status model.

So currently in COS we have a status model where plans are load are moved into pending, active and closed and expired.

We'll be doing away with that and moving to a more simplified model where each plan a new plan comes in, it'll be considered to be a lodged, but it'll have a status of lodged.

You'll have a clear lodgement date and any old plans will automatically move to superseded, so there'll be a clear flow.

That status model also won't change any of the implementing providers requirements in relation to their monthly reporting, which is also a current problem.

The in the BSP lodgement process.

You'll be able to add other practitioner roles.

So for example if there's a different practitioner who's actually going to be supporting the implementation of a behaviour support plan, and that might be someone who is different to the practitioner that wrote the plan, you'll be able to clearly add those different people in.

One of the key changes is that behaviour support plans that are only implemented by family or non-NDIS service settings can be lodged, their lodgement can be completed properly. 
Any URPs that are reported by a registered NDRS provider will be linked.

You'll be able to view those URP’s in the BSP lodgement process.

And if that, if it's appropriate, yeah, that that research practise can be moved and linked into the plan automatically saving you having to re-enter that information.

In relation to implementing providers, they'll have the ability to not only accept but also reject plans in the portal and provide a reason for rejection.

So that'll avoid us having plans sitting and pending for extended periods of time without understanding what's going on.

The authorisation information can be rather than added individually to each plan.

It can be can still be added individually to each restrictive practise, but it can also be added for all the restrictive practises in one bulk action.

So that will be particularly relevant for jurisdictions such as Victoria where the authorisation occurs at the BSP level and you only have one document that covers all those restrictive practises will only need to be added the once.

The monthly reporting functionality will be quite different for implementing providers, so there'll be a single screen that will pull all of the monthly reports that are due for all of your BSPS into one screen, and you'll be able to manage and process them from that screen.

There'll also be some changes to the way monthly reporting works in the portal.

So authorised practises, the portal will create reports for the months when you are expected to do a report.

So you'll have a really clear list of reports that are due and reports that you've completed and that should assist with managing monthly reporting obligations as well as making the process a bit more straightforward.

Those are the main highlights that we wanted to share at this point.

And the key benefits that we're hoping to achieve is that BSP lodgement time should be a lot quicker for providers with reduced duplication of data entry.

So when you're lodging, particularly when you're lodging BSP that has multiple implementing providers, you won't need to re-enter that.

And if those multiple implementing providers are all using the same restrictive practises, you won't need to re enter those restrict practises.

You'll be able to enter them once and then link them to the different providers.

The clarifying the reasons for rejection of a implementing provider will help us have better clarity in the system that everyone can see as to what the what what's going on with a particular BSP.

Our updates to the changes to the status model will fit more with practise.

Current status model is a bit unclear and that should have that should help communicate things more clearly.

There's the ability to add in information when the service provision has ceased in in more clarity.

So in regards to whether it's the lodging provider that's no longer involved or whether the implementing provider's no longer involved, those data points are more clearer.

In the new system, we're having to save time from being able to upload authorisation information in a bulk, in a bulk functionality.

And the month reporting should be say time saving that you'll be able to manage that in a single view rather than going in and out of each behaviour support plan and with clear, clear statuses assigned to each monthly report.

So that's what we're hoping to deliver.

In terms of preparation.

There's two key points to highlight for providers who are involved in this space.

Firstly, practitioners who wrote the Behaviour Support Plan will be linking that data to the BSP in the portal.

And to protect people's privacy when you're lodging a plan, you'll only be able to add practitioners that are linked to you as a provider through the worker screening linkage.

The system will do that itself, but you'll just need to make sure your practitioners have a worker screening ID that is updated into the portal.

The last, the last thing to think about is that plans implemented by family will now be able to be lodged.

So you may want to consider some procedures or policies in your organisation to make sure everyone knows how to do that.

That's it for me, Thank you.

Thanks, Michael.

Appreciate the summary.

I'm gonna hand now to my colleague Ray, who's gonna talk a little bit about how registrations will work in the new portal.

Over to you, Ray.

Thanks, Alex.

So my name is Ray Abdul Rahim and I'm a Director in the provider registrations team of the NDIS Commission.

Today I'll be providing a high-level overview of the provider portal from a registrations perspective, including key changes, benefits and what you need to do to get ready for the change.

Thank you.

So this slide lists some of the key changes between the current portal and the new provider portal and our improvements based on feedback received on the current process and systems.

Firstly, instead of multiple portals, there will be a single portal and location to manage all aspects of registration.

Next there will be availability of dynamic online forms for registration applications and renewals with variation forms also to be included in the portal in due course with built in data integrity cheques.

This replaces the current long and oftentimes complex registration application forms which do not pre-populate information already held about the provider.

Currently providers pay for their audit before suitability assessment is undertaken.

In the new portal providers will be able to submit information to allow for early suitability assessment cheques prior to audit payments.

The portal will also allow providers the ability to track an application status, saving time and effort and having to reach out to the Commission for a status update.

The portal will also provide additional functionality such as allowing multiple login methods such as Prada and My ID file attachment upload facility and provide reminders and notifications, so for instance, deadlines such as midterm audits or registration renewals.

The portal will also automatically do a malware scan of attachments and will solve a current issue of delays and mistakes in certificates by building in certificate generation capabilities.

Next slide, please.

In terms of benefits, the new portal makes registration easier to manage by providing A simpler, faster and more transparent experience for providers.

There are a number of benefits for providers, including the five listed on this slide.

So firstly, single view of registration.

Providers will be able to access registration details, applications, supporting documents and correspondence in one place.

They'll be able to manage registrations, renewals and in a future iteration of the provider portal variations through a single online portal and this will enable them to easily be able to monitor registration and compliance requirements.

Secondly, reduce costs, administrative burden and duplication.

Smart online forms guide providers through the application process.

Only relevant questions are displayed.

Reduce some complexity and time to complete applications.

Built in validation cheques help ensure applications are complete and accurate before submission.

Pre-populated information reduces duplicate data entry and administrative effort.

Automated early suitability screening cheques will enable applicants to identify and address potential eligibility issues before committing to audit related costs and activities.

Considerably less rework will be required due to validation cheques ensuring incomplete and missing information is addressed before submission.

Thirdly, real time visibility and self-service.

You'll be able to track application progress, outstanding actions and next steps online.

You'll be able to view registration status at any stage of the process.

You can complete registration activities through a convenient self-service functionality and this will all reduce the need to contact the NDIS Commission for updates.

4th Streamline communication and notifications.

You'll receive reminders and notifications for key dates, information requests and application updates.

You'll be able to access all registration related communications in one location and this will enable you to stay informed and reduce the risk of missed actions or delays.

5th is simplified document management.

There'll be upload and you'll be able to manage supporting documents directly through the portal.

There'll be reduced reliance on email and paper-based solutions and submissions and you'll be able to maintain a single source of truth for all registration related information.

Next slide please.

Now, in terms of getting ready for the new provider portal, if you're an unregistered provider currently, if applicable, ensure to progress your draught applications for new registration as soon as possible.

Keep an eye out for direct communications sent to you and ensure your action and your requirements as soon as practicable.

If you're a registered provider, ensure your registration information, key personnel and contact details are up to date, checked and complete any outstanding actions and items in relation to your registration, including audit related actions and stay tuned to direct communications sent out to you.

That's all from me.

Thank you.

Back to you, Alex.

Thanks, Ray.

Now we've talked in all of those overviews a little bit about the resources that will be available to support you to transition to the new provider portal successfully when it goes live towards the end of Q3.

I'm just going to pause for a moment here and talk a little bit about exactly what those guidance and supporting materials will be and some of the other things that we've got in place over the coming weeks and months to make sure everybody is comfortable and ready to use the new system from day one.

So as you can see on the screen here, we're going to publish a thing called a provider toolkit out on our website, and the toolkit is the single place you need to go to that all of the resources will live in.

To give you an idea of the sorts of resources that will be there, the video we watched earlier in the session is up there already and we've got a set of fact sheets that provide a high-level overview about the portal.

Progressively over the coming weeks, we will make available user journey maps, quick reference guides, the frequently asked questions section that I mentioned earlier in the session, as well as links to the recordings of these webinars.

And there is a webinar series that will follow these that will dive deeper into each of those areas of the portal we've talked about today and provide essentially a step-by-step walkthrough of how to use each of those bits of the system.

So there'll be those videos available there progressively as well.

When we're publishing things like fact sheets, quick reference guides.

We'll also make sure that we've got materials available in plain English, easy read, as I mentioned, videos, and there'll be Auslan available on those resources as well.

It's important to note that in addition to the resources in the provider Toolkit, the portal itself has built in guidance.

So there will be help text, links to relevant bits of the guidance materials published in the toolkit that will be available contextually as you're doing different things in the system.

So for example, we'll make sure that there's clear text that explains what counts as an unauthorised restrictive practise compared with what should be reported as abuse or neglect.

So throughout each step in the process, you'll see that there is that sort of guidance and help text available to try and make using the system as easy as it possibly can be.

We will also provide information through the toolkit about the hyper care period.

So immediately after go-live, there'll be a heightened period of support where we will make sure that there is clear communication channels and a clear understanding around any issues that are encountered where they need to be raised to get them addressed swiftly.

In terms of getting your organisation ready.

And I think we touched on this in some of the detailed content covered earlier.

A few suggestions from us that we think will help make transitioning to the new provider portal as seamless as it can be.

We think it's worthwhile nominating a key person in your organisation who can own the transition.

They can keep track of the materials that we're publishing in the toolkit, the webinar series that I mentioned, and make sure that you're across all of the latest information as it becomes available.

Ray mentioned double checking that your contact and key personnel details are up to date.

That's really important, having a think about who does the different bits of the business inside your organisation and making sure that they're coming along to the relevant sessions that cover the bits of the work that they do.

And having a think about whether there are changes you might need to make to your own internal systems or data structures to better map to some of the changes we're making around.

Asking more structured questions and changing some of those fields that in the current system are free text into pick lists or check boxes or other more structured data.

Finally, keep leveraging the resources that we're publishing.

Come along to the webinar series.

We've got a series planned that will run from this week through until about the middle of August, so register online for those.

Come along, use the materials in the toolkits.

They will be progressively published throughout this month and into early August.

And yeah, keep, keep engaged with us in terms of what's next from here.

So as I mentioned, topic specific webinars that will be quite detailed walkthroughs of each of the screens to cover reportable incidents, behaviour, support plans and registrations.

And we will start seeing a cascade of resources into the toolkit over the coming weeks.

So quick reference guides, fact sheets, frequently asked questions, and those user journey maps that I mentioned.

As I said at the top of the session, please do reach out to us if you've got any questions.

The email address is on screen there.

It's also available on our website.

There's a mailing list you can register for on our website as well.

So please jump on there and if you aren't already, register for our mailing list.

It will be 1 of the key communication tools that we use throughout this.

That does bring us to the end of the session this afternoon.

Thank you again for taking the time to come along and have a look at the new provider portal.

We're really excited to show it to you and for you to be in there and using it in the not-too-distant future.

We've got a busy few months ahead of us to make sure that we are ready to go, but I hope you can see there'll be a plethora of information available to you to support that transition.

And if you do have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Thank you all for your attendance.

We'll see you at the next webinar.