NDIA Resorts to Social Media to Determine Eligibility for NDIS

Things with the NDIA appear to have come to an all time low, with the agency resorting to checking the social media accounts of potential Participants, to determine eligibility to the NDIS.

National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) staff reviewed the social media accounts of a woman applying for the scheme and sent a report to a doctor engaged to provide an expert opinion, a tribunal decision reveals.

Did this woman have knowledge of the NDIA contacting her doctor, asking for a report? How many times did the NDIA breach the privacy of this woman to determine her eligibility to the NDIS?

A NDIA “intelligence report”, which included Facebook and LinkedIn posts dating back as far as 2015, was dismissed by a tribunal reviewing her case as “far from sound”.

Crucially, the tribunal found the applicant, a woman in her 30s diagnosed with hypermobility spectrum disorder and a number of other conditions, was eligible for the scheme. This overturned the agency’s previous decision. As a result of this case, one federal senator has labelled the practice of checking the social media accounts of potential participants as “outrageous”.

The woman battled the NDIA for support for 21 months in the case, in which the AAT was tasked with reviewing the agency’s decision to knock back her national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) application.

In response to a report from the woman’s treating rheumatologist, the NDIA asked a different specialist to assess her and prepare his own report. This begs the question: is the NDIA “doctor shopping”, searching for doctors who are willing to write, what the NDIA wants them to write?

Several days before the doctor sent over his findings, the agency sent him “additional material for consideration in the preparation of your report”.

According to the AAT judgment, the specialist was told “not to forward or share the documents attached”.

The rheumatologist called by the NDIA drew upon the “intelligence report” to find the woman did not experience “significant functional impairment” from her chronic pain, the tribunal said.

The report commented on some of the woman’s Facebook and LinkedIn social media posts, the AAT judgment said.

Some of the posts on which the report was based, it noted, were from 2015 and 2017. This was despite the fact the woman had said her condition deteriorated significantly in 2018 and she lodged a statement outlining her AAT appeal in 2020.

The tribunal found the “intelligence report” prepared by the NDIA was “far from sound on its face”, and it criticised the decision to provide this to the doctor as “regrettable”.

The judgment also noted the woman had tendered as evidence other posts to argue the NDIA had “selectively” picked out parts of her social media history.

The woman’s doctor diagnosed her with hypermobility spectrum disorder in 2018. Her condition means her joints stretch more than normal, leaving her at risk of injury. She also lives with chronic pain and fibromyalgia.

The tribunal heard she often used a walking stick or wheelchair and sometimes experienced “extreme pain”.

While in agreement on the woman’s diagnoses, the experts differed in some respects.

Her doctor suggested her hypermobility condition would worsen over time. But the specialist witness called by the NDIA told the tribunal that patients did not tend to get more hypermobile as they got older. Was the expert opinion from the NDIA Specialist based on fact, or the amount of money being paid to them by the NDIA?

His report contained “a number of assertions that he saw no evidence to support her self-reports of widespread pain” after examination, the tribunal decision said.

The tribunal preferred the evidence of the woman’s own specialist, noting it was the result of several interactions with the woman. It rejected the NDIA’s claim the woman was “not a witness of truth” and accepted her evidence.

The social media report provides further insight into the lengths to which the agency is going to fight the growing number of legal appeals brought by people trying to get on to the NDIS or who are unhappy with cuts to their plans.

Advocates have criticised the agency for taking a “combative” approach and spending millions of dollars on private law firms to contest cases against vulnerable applicants.

If they stopped spending millions of dollars contesting cases against vulnerable applicants and participants, they may actually improve the sustainability of the NDIS, well into the future.[