NDIS and Counselling

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 Many NDIS participants have some type of therapy in their plan, such as physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy or support from a dietician. For many, therapy is crucial to achieving the goals in their NDIS plan – but accessing it with your NDIS funds can be complex and hard to understand. Various therapies and supports can feature in several categories, so it’s often difficult to keep track of your spending and sometimes therapists struggle to find out how to invoice their services or what price to charge.This article explains how therapy works in the NDIS and gives you some tips on how to get the most out of your NDIS therapy budgets.

In its own words, the NDIS will cover “therapeutic supports, including behaviour support.” But, given how many kinds of therapies exist, what exactly does that mean? It depends on the goals you’ve set out in your NDIS plan and what’s considered "reasonable and necessary". As a general rule, if you can show that a therapy relates to your disability, will deliver an expected outcome, and is aligned with your goals and objectives, the NDIS will fund it.There are three main categories in your NDIS plan that can cover your therapies:  

1. Improved Daily LivingThis is usually the support category that covers therapy services in your NDIS plan, and it includes most of the major therapeutic treatments. As the name of the category suggests, it covers all therapy that can ‘improve your daily living skills’, from speech therapy to art therapy.The maximum hourly rates in this category can vary depending on the type of therapy.

2. Improved RelationshipsTherapies that are covered under this category are intended to help you make positive changes to your ability to socialise and relate to others. It can provide funding to help control concerning behaviours, and can include supports like psychologists, behavioural therapists and psychiatrists.In this category, there are three different rates, depending on the type of support. The highest rate is for highly specialised ‘behavioural intervention support’.

3. Improved Health & WellbeingThis category covers funding for activities which can help you support, maintain or increase your physical mobility or wellbeing. It can include funding for supports like dieticians, exercise physiology and personal trainers.In this category, maximum hourly rates can vary, depending on the type of supports,

At Plan Partners, we see many people who have Improved Daily Living supports in their NDIS plan, but require specialist therapies that should actually be covered by one of the two other categories mentioned above. They often run into trouble when their therapist invoices them for more than the maximum rate that can be charged within Improved Daily Living Skills.To prevent this from happening and ensure you get therapies under Improved Relationships or Improved Health & Wellbeing included in your NDIS plan, there are some key things you should do:

1. Firstly, ask for these therapies in your planning or annual review meeting.
2. Make sure you link your request back to your goals and be as specific as possible.
3. Take any supporting documentation with you that might help to show the benefits of therapy and how it relates to your goal. This might include a reference from your therapist, a testimonial from a carer, or even photos from a therapy session.
4. If you don’t have a planning meeting or annual review coming up, you can contact the NDIS and request a review of your NDIS plan. Please note that this can take quite some time.

• Ensure you tell your service provider what support category you have funding for. If they invoice for the wrong item, the payment may not be processed quickly, resulting in delays and potential disruptions to your care.
• If you think your Improved Daily Living therapy should actually be covered under Improved Relationships or Health and Wellbeing, you could consider requesting a review of your plan.
• Don’t be afraid to ask your planner to include Improved Relationships or Health and Wellbeing funding in your plan, as it’s common for them to be lumped under Improved Daily Living. Take any supporting documentation with you.
• If you’d like to know the exact hourly rates for the therapies your receive, make sure to check the NDIS price guide.

This information was adapted  from Plan Partners Website   If customers can’t find it, it doesn’t exist. Clearly list and describe the services you offer. Also, be sure to showcase a premium service.

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