Quarantining Funds
Budget Planning: Quarantining Funds in Australia
We know that many participants develop a budget with their Support Coordinator or Recovery
Coach. After all, it’s important to consider what supports and items may be needed for the duration
of the plan.
Some participants enter into service agreements with providers and commit to a total amount that
they will spend with that provider during the course of their plan.
Reasons to quarantine funds
Quarantining funds can ensure your money is spent how you want and minimise the
chance of overspending. Usually, at the beginning of the plan, a Support Coordinator
meets with a participant, and together they determine what services and supports will be engaged
for the duration of the plan.
Service agreements, or schedules of support, are then developed and agreed upon by the provider
and the participant. Effectively, the participant has agreed that they will spend a certain amount on
that service during their plan.
At that point, the Support Coordinator might ask myAutonomy to quarantine funds for all of those
agreed upon services. This protects the participant against overspend, which means their essential
services can still continue, as they have their funds already reserved.
Quarantined funds are also a great way for alerts to be triggered. As soon as a quarantined amount
is exhausted, we will alert Support Coordinators or participants, so that appropriate action can take
place.
Your service providers
Service providers can also request funds to be quarantined when you have agreed to use their
assistance. When you enter into a service agreement for a set amount of funds over a period,
we will reserve those funds to ensure your funds are spent in line with your expectations.
Often service providers will get in touch with myAutonomy to make sure that amount is available in
a participant’s plan budget. We will always include you in those discussions, and make sure we
maintain confidentiality around each plan budget.
We only confirm the information needed for the provider to ensure they can arrange services, plan
budget details remain confidential, and you can share them directly if you wish.
How to get funds quarantined in your plan budget
If you want to reserve funds, it’s simple. Contact us, and let us know:
1. The provider’s business name.
2. The category you would like the funds reserved from.
3. The amount to be reserved.
We don’t need to see any paperwork from the provider or keep any service agreements ‘on file’.
You can even send through your budget, and we can reserve funds based on that.
If you ever need to update quarantined funds, we can do it quickly over the phone or by email. And
releasing funds back into the general pool is just as easy.
We’re here to help
We streamline plan management. If you’d like to quarantine any funds in a plan budget, contact us
on 1300 60 33 89 or at [email protected] and let us know.
