NDIS FAQs

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is Australia’s first national Scheme for people with disability. The NDIS is a federally managed and funded safety net, providing a nationally-consistent, lifetime commitment to people who have permanent and significant disability with funding for supports and services.

Previously each state and territory has managed disability support themselves, and the system was underfunded, unfair, fragmented, inefficient and gave people with a disability little choice.

The NDIS is a federally managed and funded safety net, providing a nationally consistent, lifetime commitment to supports for people with a disability in their everyday life.

The NDIA is an independent Commonwealth government agency responsible for overseeing the implementation of the NDIS.

Support must be ‘reasonable and necessary’ and also:

• Help you reach your goals and aspirations
• Develop your capacity to actively take part in the community
• Foster greater independence
• Increase your social and economic participation
• Represent value for money.

This can include things you’d like to access for learning, work, daily living, accommodation, equipment/assistive technology, health, transport and hobbies.

The price guide sets a price by the NDIS for supports offered under NDIS. It determines what a service provider can charge for supports, much like a Medicare line item.

Some people find it helpful to look through to better understand the breadth of supports available. However, it isn’t an exhaustive list as it doesn’t cover every single item.

For more information visit the price guide pages on the official NDIS website.

Unfortunately no-one can tell you that except the NDIS themselves as each case is individually assessed.

The NDIS looks at your individual goals and what reasonable and necessary supports you need to achieve these. They will take into account your age, stage of life, primary disability, functional impairment, living situation and your informal supports.

We do however, encourage you to take a look at the NDIS quarterly reports for your state and it will give you an idea of average funding packages for different age groups.

No, the NDIS is not means tested and has no impact on the Disability Support Pension.

If you turn 65 years after you have become an NDIS participant, you will have a choice.

• You can either continue to receive disability supports in the NDIS or
• Choose to receive supports through the Commonwealth aged care system.

Unsuccessful applications are most likely because the NDIS does not think you meet the eligibility criteria (read more about ‘am I eligible?’ here).

The NDIA may identify that your supports are best delivered by other service systems.

For a list of organisations who can help with support, both nationally and in different states and territories visit the page on the NDIS website about support for people who are not eligible.

You’ll need to start preparing for your planning meeting with the NDIS, this is called pre-planning. The NDIS is a new way of doing things and providing supports so preparation is really important in order to understand how it works, how to speak NDIS language and how to ask for what you need, to enable you to get the best outcomes.

Pre-planning is all the preparation work you put in before your planning meeting. It can involve:

• Gathering any necessary assessments, diagnosis and paperwork.
• Showing what supports you currently access and thinking about those you need to live ‘an ordinary life’.
• Starting to think about your goals, and what you would like to achieve in both the short term and long term.

Planning meetings are either conducted by an NDIS planner or a Local Area Coordinator (LAC). In most cases, it will be an LAC.

You will be contacted to arrange your planning meeting and to gather some initial information about you. You’ll then have a meeting for the proper planning session.

It is up to you as to where you would like to meet, when you like to meet and who you would like to bring with you. Many people choose to have their meeting at home.

You will receive notification from the NDIS by your preferred mode of communication (usually email or letter) let you know your new plan is active. It will contain your myplace portal activation code, which expires within 10 days.

About 24 hours after your plan has been approved, it will be available on the NDIS myplace portal so it’s worth checking to see if the plan has been uploaded.

You will usually also receive a printed copy of your plan in the mail.