NDIS Minister Bill Shorten announces $110m fraud crackdown

National Disability and Insurance Scheme Minister Bill Shorten announced a major change for the NDIS detection program. See why.

EXCLUSIVE

More than $110 million will be tipped into a highly successful NDIS fraud detection program that has already delivered twice as much in savings and stopped dodgy providers funnelling a further $400m away from genuine scheme participants.

National Disability and Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Minister Bill Shorten announced the $110.4m funding boost for the Crack Down on Fraud program on Saturday, which follows an initial $83.9m investment made earlier this year to help officials better detect and prevent the exploitation of vulnerable Australians.

“The Crack Down on Fraud program is already delivering on this government’s investment and pledge to ensure every dollar allocated to NDIS participants reaches them,” he said.

Bill Shorten says the government will continue to invest in measures that will “safeguard” the NDIS. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Dozens of warrants targeting dodgy businesses and providers have been executed, preventing more than $400m from being fraudulently diverted away from genuine NDIS participants.

It’s also delivered more than $200m in savings to the scheme.

Mr Shorten said the program was progressively delivering a range of changes that make it “easier for participants and providers to get it right and much harder for them to get it wrong”.

More than 2100 NDIS providers have been identified by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) as having “problematic claiming behaviours” under system changes made since the Crack Down on Fraud program launched in February this year.

Previously those providers were able to make claims and be automatically paid, but now none can receive taxpayer money unless they undertake a “manual payment review” for every claim.

Many of the questionable providers identified by the new program are now being subjected to further historic audits or criminal prosecutions.

“Problematic” behaviours by NDIS providers detected this year include attempts to claim funds while a participant was hospitalised or in jail.

More than 2100 NDIS providers have been identified as having “problematic claiming behaviours”. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

The agency also found unscrupulous providers who were draining participant’s plans without providing any services, and falsifying health assessments and invoices to rort taxpayers.

Once these issues were discovered, the NDIA was able to pause payments until manual reviews could be conducted, which prompted many suspect providers to try and avoid scrutiny by moving their participants onto different Australian Business Numbers (ABN).

But these too were found, with the agency able to identify all of the ABNs used to make the problematic claims and subsequently uncover “networks of providers systematically abusing participants”.

From there, historic audits were launched, with the findings leading to several major criminal investigations.

Mr Shorten said the government would continue to invest in measures that would “safeguard” the NDIS to “ensure it’s around for generations”.

“I want to ensure that criminals aren’t able to exploit the NDIS, rip off taxpayers and, most importantly, attempt to skim money off the hundreds of thousands of Australians who rely on the life-changing scheme,” he said.

Originally published as NDIS Minister Bill Shorten announces $110m fraud crackdown