By Dongyun Kwon
Last week, Star Mail shared a story of a Healesville resident about how hard it was to get her claims approved by the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) for her post-accident treatments.
This week, Star Mail is introducing two more TAC clients with similar issues.
Another TAC client, who chose to remain anonymous and whom we will refer to as “Jo”, had a car accident in 1996 while she was driving home from work.
A few days later, Jo was discharged from the hospital to do outpatient rehab, however, it was the beginning of a long-time battle against the TAC for her treatment claims.
“When you first have your initial accident with such trauma like that and you’ve got internal bleeding and inflammation, a lot of your broken bones don’t show up on that initial x-ray,” Jo said.
“I fought with the TAC for years after that because they relied on the fact that the initial x-ray just didn’t show much at all, except for the initial broken ribs, but it didn’t pick up anything of the hit for the neck to start with.
“My lawyer fought for four years to have my hip surgery done, which was great, but I’m still battling them to this day with another VCAT application against them.”
According to Jo’s claim, the barrister on TAC’s side spoke disrespectfully to her at one of the VCAT’s hearings.
“I’m pending back surgery again at the end of May, versus being booked in with a surgeon (on 17 April), and as part of that, you need to have physio post-op to recondition from the surgery, which the TAC is well aware of, and they’ve refused continued physio post-op, so we’ve got another VCAT application in against them,” she said.
“With that, I’ve been receiving care for a long time, and all my providers and I didn’t hear from TAC, despite having medical approval in place for about five to seven years, and then all of a sudden, without any consult to myself or my medical providers, they just stopped paying for the treatment.
“And another thing, a year and a half ago, my claim’s officer was really rude on the phone, there was a caption while they were putting me through to the client’s manager. She said, ‘I’ve got (Jo) on the phone.’ And he goes, ‘Oh God, I hope she hasn’t given you a hard time.’ I actually got that, and I’ve got the telephonic recording of that. I escalated the TAC and got a full apology letter from them.”
At the hearing, the VCAT member advised her to take it up with Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan as VCAT cannot oversee the issue.
After a follow-up for many months, Premier Allan finally sent her an email, saying she was concerned with her issues and had passed it to the relevant Minister Ben Carroll.
Yet, Jo hasn’t heard back from the minister.
Dr Jai Cooper, a long-term TAC client from 1987, pointed out some issues with the TAC’s services.
One of the main issues raised by him is absence of long-term follow-up and lack of knowledge of client outcomes.
Dr Cooper said his experience of initial recovery planning with the TAC was excellent in 1987 and 1988, however, TAC has provided no further support for ongoing injury management planning despite more complex arising due to compensatory behaviours.
“If I just died of old age, or something else happened to me, or if I moved overseas, or any of those things, they do not do any follow-up. They do not know,” he said.
“They don’t have a proper research program into the outcomes for clients.
“There is a significant body of research into accident prevention for which the TAC should be lauded. There is also some valuable research into supporting high-needs clients. However, there is an absence of data, analysis or reporting available on the outcomes across the range of clients on a longitudinal basis.”
The TAC supports its most seriously injured clients using a person-centred planning model.
The MyPlan is the tool used to capture the client’s goals, service and progress over time with a focus on maximising health, vocational and quality of life goals following serious injury.
Not all TAC clients require a MyPlan, with the majority of clients able to recover completely, or otherwise maintain relative independence with low to moderate ongoing support from the TAC.
Dr Cooper said he found out MyPlan only applies to new cases.
“On 21 February 2025, I rang and spoke with a customer service officer who had no knowledge of MyPlan,” he said.
“I asked to be referred to a team leader, and when I asked what they knew about MyPlan, the team leader stated ‘to be honest, not a lot’.
“The team leader offered to find out more and stated that they would get back to me. Days later, the team leader did reply and explained that MyPlan only applies to new cases.”
Dr Cooper claimed the culture of TAC has shifted in recent years.
“I think there’s one thing that may have accelerated things in the last few years. It’s just a theory, but it may be that,” he said.
“Some clients have stated straight out on the client’s Facebook page and myself as well that TAC isn’t just doing their job because the NDIS has come in.
“Because if they pressure you enough, then you’ll just disappear, and go and join the NDIS. So they don’t have any motivation. They don’t have a legislative responsibility to check in on you periodically and regularly, even though it’s in the act of this that they’re supposed to provide unknown care.”
Dr Cooper recommends that TAC should legislate and develop a Client Advisory Group for public engagement.
The TAC supports around 45,000 clients each year via a range of different service offerings and may pay for reasonable medical treatment and certain other services that people may need as a result of injuries from a transport accident.
When making decisions about treatment and services the TAC can pay for, it must follow the provisions of its legislation, the Transport Accident Act 1986.
People, who are unsure of the service offerings and supports available by the TAC, are encouraged to contact us at 1300 654 329.
For an additional resource on how the TAC makes decisions, please visit: tac.vic.gov.au/clients/how-we-can-help/how-we-make-decisions?drop=3
