Average wait times for the Disability Support Pension have tripled in the last four years to 107 days, according to new data from Services Australia revealed during Senate estimates.
That's up from 82 days last year, and 33 days in the 2020-21 financial year, following the Morrison government's COVID-19 stimulus measures, which included increased welfare payments.
But wait times for DSP payments vary widely depending on the condition being assessed.
On one end of the scale, people living with chronic illnesses wait, on average, 135 days for an assessment, and people with mental illness or psychiatric disorders wait for 123 days.
That's compared to 50 days for people who have cancer.
Nearly 10,000 people have waited more than 120 days for their claims to be assessed, according to the new figures.
"These are people who are genuinely in crisis," Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne told Services Australia at an estimates hearing in Canberra.
"I'm wanting to hear what's happening to really push that [waiting time] along for such a vulnerable cohort."
The DSP is an income support payment for people who have limited ability to work. The maximum rate of DSP for a single person with no dependents is $1,116 a fortnight, roughly $29,000 a year.
The maximum rate of JobSeeker for a single person with no dependents is roughly $763 a fortnight, which is just under $20,000 a year.
Deputy chief executive officer of Services Australia Jarrod Howard said the complexities of DSP claims means they can take longer to assess than many other income support payments.
"The assessments are made by an allied health professional. We've got 70 more allied health professionals coming on board out of a recent recruitment round to assist with these assessments," Mr Howard said.
He said the new staff will help clear the backlog of outstanding claims.
"We are seeing good progress in relation to those numbers starting to come down. I would expect that they will continue to come down over the next few months."
Disability advocates have sounded the alarm on the difficulty around accessing DSP, saying the process and high rejection rate are pushing people onto the lower-paid JobSeeker payment.
A 2021 report from the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations estimated more than 376,000 people had moved from DSP to JobSeeker, with chronic illness and psycho social illnesses being the biggest groups represented.
"What we are seeing is a dramatic reduction in access to the DSP, effectively relegating people to unrelenting poverty," CEO Ross Joyce said.
'Things were incredibly desperate'
triple j Hack listener Chris, who asked us not to use his surname, says he waited 10 months for his DSP assessment to be completed.
Chris lives with complex PTSD which impacts his ability to work, and he applied for DSP in August of last year.
"It was proving to be quite dangerous and unhealthy for me through the harder times, especially things like medication changes, and that I needed to take a step back from working to ensure that something terrible didn't happen to me," Chris told Hack.
According to the data from the most recent Senate estimates, on average it takes 123 days for people with mental illness or psychiatric disabilities to be assessed for DSP.
Chris had no idea how stressful it would be attempting to have his mental health disability claim assessed.
"A lot of bills fell behind, things like phone bill, water bill, power bill all just racked up in that time."
Chris says he skipped meals and rationed his medication, which wasn't good for his recovery.
"There was not enough money in the bank, I was attempting to buy something [medication] and it's just not there, or missing doctor's appointments, psychiatrist appointments.
"After picking up my three-year-old son from pre-school, he asked us: 'Do we have enough money to buy milk for the fridge today?'
"It showed that despite our best efforts, he was aware that money had become a big problem for us.
"The worst part was the answer to his question was no."
Chris and his wife borrowed money in order to keep up with their mortgage repayments, but weren't able to pay the arrears the bank was owed. The bank threatened to foreclose.
Then, a family friend recommended Chris contact his federal MP, Labor backbencher Susan Templeman.
"They called on my behalf and got the ball rolling for me."
Just days later, he got a call from Services Australia, the agency who said they would organise another assessment in a month's time. But, Chris says, that would have been disastrous in his situation.
"I told them that the bank had now filed in the New South Wales Supreme Court to seize the home, to foreclose on the loan, and take the home and that things were incredibly desperate," he said.
"In all likelihood, I would be homeless and living out of a car or … trying to find a couch for my whole family to live on."
A few days after that, Chris got a call from the same staff member, saying they'd done a file assessment, which used information he'd already provided to Services Australia, and approved his claim for DSP.
He had an outcome just eight days after contacting Ms Templeman's office.
"That long period of hopelessness [where I had] no idea what was going to happen, no idea if I was going to be able to feed my family, let alone eat myself, that period was hopefully over."
