30/11/2025
Stevie is one of the bravest people I’ve (Cat) had the privilege to connect with. He has highlighted very clearly the inefficient and over spending with the NDIS budget doesn’t sit with providers (who are repeatedly being dragged through the mud and under a microscope) but with the agency. He spent funding from his inaccurate plan to get a behaviour assessment to provide to the NDIS to prove he didn’t need behaviour supports. The burden this need to justify already well documented and assessed conditions to get appropriate supports was enormous. His story is a powerful one but unfortunately not uncommon. With the use of AI to build plans, requests and review access and eligibility there are so many errors and people being put at risk. That burden of care has just simply shifted to the health system as people’s conditions decline without the appropriate supports. Fund people adequately and appropriately and we reduce that $ figure enormously, reduce the strain on our health system and have people engaging in life and employment. Why wouldn’t you want the agency working effectively 🤷♀️ It’s all of our money they’re throwing away with these inaccuracies and more importantly they’re putting lives at risk.
“When Stevie Howson got his NDIS plan, it looked like it had been written for someone else – an autistic person with challenging behaviours.
It included $3000 for speech therapy and $15,000 for behavioural support.
At the time he was an adult living in his own home and holding down a mainstream job.
What he actually needed and asked for was a wheelchair, physiotherapy and support at home, due to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a devastating connective tissue disorder, which had robbed him of his mobility.
He’d also asked for some therapy due to a late diagnosis of autism.
The 34-year-old from Armidale in NSW, later found autism had been assigned as his “primary disability” and believes his plan was created by an algorithm, somehow “generated through automation”.”
Read the full article in the comments.
