1
Referral
Referring clinician or social worker completes a single-page referral form. Attach any clinical certificate confirming terminal-illness status. Household must consent.
Day 0
Key facts about a Life Without Debt referral partnership
- What LWD does
- Free licensed consumer-debt advocacy for Australian households where one member has a specialist-certified terminal illness. Advocacy under Australian Credit Licence 387398. Includes creditor negotiation, activation of life-insurance terminal-illness benefits, pursuit of hardship waivers, and coordination with financial counsellors and community legal centres.
- How referrals work
- Single-page referral form. 24-hour acknowledgement of intake. Mid-case update to the referrer. Written outcome summary to the referrer at closure. Full case cycle averages 23 days from referral to first substantive resolution.
- Cost to household
- Zero. Ever. LWD does not accept payment from households, and does not condition service on any means test other than the eligibility criteria below.
- Cost to referring organisation
- Zero in Year 1 and Year 2. From Year 3, an optional embedded-advocate fee-for-service model becomes available for organisations that want an LWD advocate stationed with their team. The core referral pathway remains free.
- Governance & safeguards
- Company limited by guarantee. [ACNC registration pending], [DGR endorsement pending]. Skills-based independent board. ACL 387398. Professional indemnity insured. Published depiction guardrails. No individual beneficiary detail ever shared outside the case-file (unless the household consents).
The clinical rationale
Unmanaged debt is a clinical problem in palliative care.
Financial distress at end of life is not a peripheral social issue — it affects pain thresholds, family communication, treatment adherence, and the quality of the final weeks of life. Palliative-care teams already know this. What clinical teams typically lack is a licensed, credentialled referral pathway that resolves the financial distress completely, without adding to the household’s burden, and without absorbing clinical time on financial casework.
Life Without Debt exists specifically to be that referral pathway. Our advocates are licensed under ACL 387398, hold professional indemnity, and operate under a published depiction-guardrails policy. We do not enter the clinical relationship, we do not offer medical advice, and we do not screen households on income, assets, culture, or religion. The clinical judgement of terminal-illness status remains yours; the debt resolution becomes ours.
Indicative case metrics
Drawn from case-pattern research in published Australian hardship-industry data (ASIC RG 96, National Debt Helpline reports, Consumer Action Law Centre casebooks, palliative-care service reports). Real-case data will replace these figures from Year 1 onward, published in the annual audited impact report.
23 days
Average case cycle time from referral to first substantive resolution
$58,700
Average debt resolved per closed case (composite research figure)
$1,840
Approximate cost of advocacy delivery per case (funded by philanthropic rooms)
How the referral pathway works
Four touchpoints, from referral to closure. Designed to add nothing to the clinical team’s administrative load, and to leave a clear evidentiary trail back into the household’s clinical record.
2
Intake & acknowledgement
LWD contacts the household within 24 hours. Full financial picture captured under the household’s consent. Written acknowledgement to the referrer.
Within 24h
3
Advocacy & mid-case update
Creditor negotiation, life-insurance activation, hardship waivers. Aggregate mid-case update to referrer at ≈ day 12 (no confidential detail unless household consents).
Day 1–20
4
Closure & outcome
Written outcome summary to referrer: total debt extinguished, inter-generational liability prevented, insurance activations completed. Case closed with signed household confirmation.
≈ Day 23
Founding referral partners in cultivation. Two national referral partners are already at cultivation stage in the LWD prospect pipeline: Palliative Care Australia and MND Australia. If your organisation is a state palliative-care network, hospital palliative-care unit, hospice, condition-specific charity, or PHN, we would be glad to hear from you as a founding referral partner.
Eligibility & scope
The eligibility criteria below govern what LWD can accept as a referral. They are deliberately narrow — the service is designed to do one thing well, and to remain trusted by clinical partners because the scope is legible.
LWD accepts referrals when:
- The referred household member has a specialist-certified terminal illness (typical life expectancy of 24 months or less)
- Consumer debt is present or likely (credit cards, personal loans, buy-now-pay-later, utility arrears, unpaid rent, medical debt)
- The household resides in Australia (any state or territory)
- The household has provided informed consent to the referral
- The referring party is a health-sector organisation, financial counsellor, community legal centre, or Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation
LWD does not accept referrals when:
- Terminal-illness status is not clinically confirmed
- The debt in question is unrelated to a household member facing terminal illness
- The household has not consented to referral
- The presenting issue is business debt, tax debt not related to hardship, or fraud recovery
- The referral would compromise an existing legal proceeding without proper consent to intervene
Referring partner types
- Public and private hospital palliative-care units
- Community and inpatient hospices
- Hospital social work departments
- State palliative-care networks
- Palliative Care Australia and its members
- Condition-specific national charities (MND Australia, Cancer Council, Dementia Australia, MSK Australia, Prostate Cancer Foundation)
- Community health services and PHNs
- Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations
- Financial counselling agencies (National Debt Helpline)
- Community legal centres
- Aged-care providers (residential and in-home)
- Specialist palliative-care clinicians and GPs
Frequently asked questions
What is a Life Without Debt referral partnership?
A formal referral pathway between your organisation (hospital, hospice, palliative-care service, condition-specific charity, or community-health provider) and Life Without Debt. Referrals arrive via a single-page form; LWD responds to the household within 24 hours of intake; a written outcome summary is returned to the referring clinician or social worker at case closure. Free to the household. Ever.
Who is eligible for referral?
Australian households where one member has a specialist-certified terminal illness (typical life expectancy of 24 months or less), where consumer debt is present or likely, and where the household consents to referral. LWD does not screen on income, assets, cultural background, or religious affiliation.
What does the referring clinician see back?
Three touchpoints. A 24-hour acknowledgement of intake. A mid-case update (aggregate — no confidential detail unless the household consents). A written outcome summary at closure: total debt extinguished, inter-generational liability prevented, and any life-insurance or hardship activations completed. The referrer is credited in the annual audited impact report as a named referral partner, subject to their consent.
Does the referral partnership cost anything?
Not in Year 1 or Year 2. From Year 3 onwards, a fee-for-service option becomes available for organisations that want an embedded LWD advocate physically or virtually stationed with their team (targeted at multi-site hospital groups, larger hospice networks, and PHNs). The core referral pathway remains free.
What licences and clinical safeguards apply?
Consumer-credit negotiation is delivered under Australian Credit Licence 387398 held by Credit Mediation Services Pty Ltd, LWD’s related for-profit entity. LWD holds professional indemnity. All advocates are qualified financial counsellors or accredited paralegals. LWD does not provide medical advice or clinical care and does not enter the clinical relationship — referrals proceed on your clinical judgement of terminal-illness status.
How is household consent handled?
Written informed consent is captured at the referring organisation before referral, or by LWD at the point of intake. Consent covers information sharing between LWD and the referrer, LWD and creditors, and LWD and any insurer for terminal-illness benefit activation. Consent can be withdrawn by the household at any time.
What if a household needs help but does not meet the eligibility criteria?
LWD will decline the referral (with a written note back to the referrer explaining the decline reason) and provide a warm hand-off to the National Debt Helpline, a community legal centre, or a financial counsellor as appropriate. The service is scope-tight by design, so that clinical partners can trust the referral fit.
Request the referral MOU
Not a fundraising conversation. A structured 30-minute call to walk through the referral form, the intake pathway, the eligibility criteria, and the MOU framework — so your team can test the pathway against your service model before any commitment.
Carla Oliver CPA, CIMA, BA(Hons) Bus. · Board-Appointed CFO Advisor · carla@cosaicfoservices.com.au · Referrals: referrals@cosaicfoservices.com.au
Compliance note. Life Without Debt Ltd is a company in formation. ACNC registration and DGR endorsement are pending. Consumer-credit advocacy is delivered under Australian Credit Licence 387398 held by Credit Mediation Services Pty Ltd. LWD does not provide medical advice or clinical care and does not enter the clinical relationship. Case metrics on this page are composite figures drawn from published Australian hardship-industry research; real-case data will replace them in the annual audited impact report from Year 1. No individual beneficiary detail is ever shared outside the case-file except with the household’s written informed consent. The referral MOU is executed only after ACNC registration is granted.