I have a disability allowance, but you are only allowed costs related directly to your disability so 4 visits per year - ordinary stuff like lung infections and breast lumps are not included.

Unfortunately untreated infections tend to make my underlying condition worse so I'm kind of over a barrel.

I will ask for it to be updated (you have to provide receipts and doctor signatures for each thing). Updating is a bit dicey because sometimes other things drop off due to clerical error. Also, they seem to pride themselves on only paying partial costs, e.g if the medicine costs $19 they might pay you $11.

[–] Dave 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah that sucks. My experiences with WINZ are that things could be a lot simpler but they almost seem designed to be unnecessarily dificult.

[–] liv 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yeah you're right, it's partly the design, KPIs, and lack of transparency, but I think it's also an institutional culture of lack of accountability - staff aren't trained very well, but they also feel free to act arbitrarily. I've witnessed behaviour that would have got the staff member a written warning at my former workplace (an institution).

[–] Dave 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have an actionable plan to disestablish WINZ, all the government needs to do is ask 😆

[–] liv 2 points 1 year ago

Sounds good!