How to Prepare for Your NDIS Plan Reassessment

Your NDIS plan reassessment, previously called a plan review, is the meeting where the NDIA decides what your next plan will fund. Participants who arrive with clear goals and current evidence consistently get plans that fit their lives better. Those who arrive with nothing often find supports reduced. This checklist is what we work through with our own participants.

Eight weeks out: gather evidence

The NDIA funds supports that are reasonable and necessary, and the way it judges that is through evidence. Start collecting:

• Allied health reports from your occupational therapist, physiotherapist, psychologist or speech pathologist. Ask each one for a progress report that states what was achieved and what is still needed.
• A functional capacity assessment if your needs have changed significantly.
• Provider reports from your support coordinator and support workers describing what supports were delivered and how they helped.
• Medical letters for any new diagnosis or change in condition.

Reports written in the last six months carry the most weight.

Four weeks out: review your current plan

Go through your plan statements with your support coordinator or plan manager and answer three questions for each budget:

1. Was the funding fully used? If not, why not?
2. What worked well and should continue?
3. What was missing?

Unspent funding needs an explanation, such as a waiting list or a change in circumstances, or the NDIA may assume it was not needed.

Two weeks out: write your goals

Goals drive funding. Good goals are specific and connect to a support. Compare:

• Weak: “I want to be more independent.”
• Strong: “I want to shower and dress myself with prompting only, so I need occupational therapy to practise skills and personal care support three mornings a week while I learn.”

Write two or three short-term goals and one or two longer-term ones.

At the meeting

• Bring a support person, whether family, a friend or your support coordinator.
• Ask for an interpreter in advance if you need one. This is your right.
• Describe your worst days, not your best. Planners need to understand what happens when things go wrong.
• Ask the planner to confirm what evidence they have received.
• Ask when to expect the decision and how you will be notified.

After the decision

Read the new plan the day it arrives. If something reasonable was refused or reduced, you can request an internal review within three months. Support coordinators help with this every day, so do not accept a poor plan quietly.

Support through the whole process

Avida Care’s support coordinators prepare participants across Box Hill and Melbourne’s east for reassessments, and our allied health team can provide the reports you need. Call 0477 399 714 or 0421 986 841, or contact us to get started well before your plan end date.