A small disability care provider was forced to accumulate a large credit card debt and stop taking new clients because he was chasing more than $30,000 in unpaid services from the National Disability Insurance Agency.
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Provider David Edwards, who owns a disability support service that provides personal care for clients in Canberra, said he was forced to let go of staff and stop accepting clients because of the months-long saga.
He said it was a symptom of a failed system that was unnecessarily bureaucratic and left people with disabilities behind.
Mr Edwards said his small company was in April last year approached to provide living support for a vulnerable client who had just suffered a stroke.
It was told the client had an active plan valid until November, but in July discovered the client's budget had run out.
What followed was more than six months of seemingly endless phone calls and navigation of complex bureaucracy in order to get care for the client and receive payment.
"When we first discovered there was no money we tried to contact the client coordinator but they said 'He is no longer with us he is managed by the NDIA'," Mr Edwards said.
"So in July we contacted the NDIA immediately and lodged a complaint with the fraud investigation.
"We sent all the paperwork to the NDIA and they never got back to us."
Mr Edwards said his service continued to support the client after discovering there was no money because it believed he would have been left to languish.
"Simply if we walked away the client couldn’t survive," he said.
"We couldn’t leave the client and walk away as he relies on someone to get him out of bed and back to bed every day."
He said he had to take money out of his personal credit card to pay his staff who were caring for the client and was not able to accept any new clients.
By September he could no longer provide the unpaid support and organised to send the client to a nursing home while the client's plan was reviewed by the agency.
Mr Edwards said the company was owed $34,000 by that time for the care provided to the client.
"I contacted the minister’s office several times every time they transferred me through to the NDIA and I am still waiting," he said.
"We have provided many free of charge services and we are chasing only the amount for the support that was provided."
After first raising the issue in July, Mr Edwards was recently told he would be reimbursed the money - the day after the agency was contacted by The Canberra Times.
Mr Edwards said the ordeal had taken a significant emotional and financial toll on himself and the carers whom he employed.
An NDIA spokeswoman said the matter had been resolved following work with Mr Edwards, the participant and plan managers to ensure appropriate funding was in place.
"It is appropriate that the NDIA has undertaken a thorough assessment of the circumstances before reimbursement could be finalised," she said.
