NDIS whistleblowers lift lid on sick black market where vulnerable people are exploited for profit
The most vulnerable NDIS participants have become commodities in a shock cash-for-clients scheme. One whistleblower now has a solution to weed out the dodgy providers. SEE THE VIDEO
Exclusive: Disabled people in the NDIS are being traded like commodities for thousands of dollars, completely unaware they’re being auctioned off to the highest bidder, whistleblowers claim.
Those with the biggest NDIS plans are most vulnerable to this sick blackmarket, according to Tanya-Lee Quinn, a Sydney-based CEO of a disability company.
“There are people that call themselves consultants or concierges, and they will approach a disability service provider and, and they’ll say I’ve got a potential customer or participant for your group home and they’ll want a percentage of the plan value or a flat rate,” Ms Quinn, said. She herself has been offered cash for referrals, which she rejected.
“What they’ll do is they’ll offer it to a bunch and whoever pays the most they will place that participant. They’ll tell that participant that, ‘I’m going to find you the right home, the best people, the best service, and I’m working for you’. But they’re actually working for themselves. It’s whoever’s willing to sort of do the backdoor deal that gets the vacancies filled.
“You’ve got these people that are claiming to be helping them, and they’re actually just funnelling them to friends and family and putting them in sometimes terrible positions.”
Belinda Toohey, owner and director of Including You Disability Support Service, was offered $500 of shopping vouchers if she referred clients to a Melbourne provider.
They immediately went onto her “s..t list” of dodgy providers her company refuses to use.
She estimates around 50 of her clients, who she helps support and find services, have been lured by unethical providers since 2017. She said the practice has worsened since 2022 and is now out of control.
Ms Toohey further alleged hospital staff are tipping off providers when NDIS participants arrive at emergency.
“There is some level of corruption going on, fraudulent behaviour or tip-offs when people are coming into emergency presenting with psychosocial disabilities,” Ms Toohey said.
“They’re targeting everyone from those with schizophrenia to people who are using drugs or alcohol with diminished capacity and they’re promised things.
“Our guys end up going missing or they might ring us and go, ‘Look, I was approached by somebody, they gave me a bag of ice if I call up the NDIS and give them access as a new service provider for my plan’.”
Ms Toohey also said clients are being approached in rooming houses and promised better housing and food.
One, who has schizoaffective disorder and a long history of drug use, received none of the promised services after he moved, not even meals. He survived on rice and butter for weeks on end, until Ms Toohey got him moved.
She said support coordinators on the frontline provide a vital role in reporting fraud to the authorities, and are also exposed to threats or abuse by providers for disrupting their “cash cow”.
“They really are the scum of the earth,” Ms Toohey, who reports fraud at least once a week, said. “They don’t even see the person at all, they just see the dollars.”
Ms Quinn said the NDIS blackmarket is allowed to thrive because the system has evolved into giving providers all the power, instead of participants, as was intended.
In a bid to change it, she has created an app called Provider Check with developer James Lobbes, which they hope to launch in the next couple of weeks.
It will rate every provider, whether they subscribe or not, using a traffic light code, making it easier for participants to make their own choice.
Ms Quinn – who raised the alarm over the practices of Cocoon SDA Care which has now been banned from the scheme – said public information including any red flags relating to compliance, will be fed into the app, along with verified reviews from participants, to create a score for each service. It will also pick up any public concerns on principal people behind companies, including other companies they’re associated with, providing more transparency.
She said the app would have picked up concerns about Cocoon years before the National Disability Quality and Safeguards Commission banned it.
Mr Lobbes said the app has the potential to save the taxpayer up to a billion dollars a year, because of its matching service, ensuring more satisfaction, less change and better outcomes.
“The NDIS will see a significant drop in mismatches and therefore complaints and problems,” Mr Lobbes said. “So Provider Check is really the platform that the NDIS should have built in the first place.”
A spokesperson from the regulator, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, said offering inducements and referral payments is known as ‘sharp practices’, and can undermine participant choice and control.
“An NDIS provider must not give, ask for, or accept any inducement or gift that impacts or may impact the way they provide supports or services under the NDIS, which may include referral payments,” the spokesperson said.
These new revelations come after this masthead shone a light on dodgy cottage industries that have sprung up offering pre-approved NDIS businesses for sale and services to beat audit checks.
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Originally published as NDIS whistleblowers lift lid on sick black market where vulnerable people are exploited for profit
