NDIS — planning and supports

The NDIA (or a partner organisation) talks with you about your goals, your daily life, the supports you currently use, and what you'd like to be able to do. The meeting then becomes the basis of your first plan — what's funded and at what level.

Prepare. This is the single biggest difference between participants who get a plan that works and ones who don't.

Bring:

• Your goals, written down.
• A list of the supports you currently use and from whom.
• The functional impact reports from your treating health professionals.
• Any quotes for equipment, therapy or services you know you'll need.
• A support person — it's a long meeting and decisions get made fast.

It's the legal test the NDIS uses to decide whether to fund a support. The support has to:

• be related to your disability,
• be likely to be effective and beneficial,
• represent value for money,
• take into account help you already get informally (from family, friends, community), and
• not be more appropriately funded by another part of the system (Medicare, schools, aged care, etc).

If a support clears all five tests, it can be funded.

• Core is the everyday-needs budget — daily living help, consumables, social participation, transport. The most flexible — funding can move between sub-categories.
• Capacity Building is for things that build skills and independence — therapies, support coordination, employment supports. Funding is allocated to specific outcomes; you can't move it freely.
• Capital is for big-ticket items — assistive technology over a threshold, home modifications. Funding is locked to the specific items quoted.

• Self-managed gives you the most flexibility (and the most paperwork). You handle invoices and claims. You can use both registered and unregistered providers.
• Plan-managed is the middle ground. A plan management provider does the paperwork, you choose the providers (registered or unregistered). Plan management is funded separately, so it doesn't reduce your supports budget.
• NDIA-managed is the simplest — the NDIA pays providers directly. The trade-off: you can only use NDIS-registered providers, which can be limiting in some areas.

You can mix and match across budget categories, and you can change at any time without waiting for a plan review.

Specific items in your plan that can only be used for that exact purpose — for example, a particular piece of assistive technology, support coordination, or plan management. You can't redirect them to something else without the NDIS CEO's written approval.

From 3 October 2024, the NDIS has two formal lists set in legislation:

• An "in" list of supports the NDIS funds.
• An "out" list of supports it doesn't.

Some things that were previously funded — household groceries, holidays, some lifestyle items, anything that falls under the aged care system — are now on the "out" list. There's a replacement process if you can show that an "out" item meets specific criteria for you, but it's no longer automatic.

If your current plan started before October 2024 and you're spending in those categories, expect changes at your next reassessment.