NDIS Allied Health: Funding, Costs and Payment Options

By DisabilityChoice · Sources checked 28 September 2026 against ndis.gov.au

What counts as allied health under the NDIS

The NDIS does not use the phrase “allied health” in your plan. It funds therapeutic supports, which it describes as services designed to help you improve your functional abilities, develop skills and increase your independence in daily life.

In practice that covers the professions most people mean by allied health:

• Occupational therapy
• Physiotherapy
• Speech pathology
• Psychology and counselling
• Exercise physiology
• Dietetics
• Podiatry, audiology and orthotics
• Positive behaviour support practitioners

The test is not the profession. It is whether the support relates to your disability and meets the reasonable and necessary criteria. A physiotherapist treating a sporting injury is not an NDIS support; the same physiotherapist working on mobility affected by your disability generally is.

Nursing is a related health support rather than an allied-health therapy. If you need disability-related nursing alongside your therapy team, see our guide to NDIS nursing funding, costs and provider questions.

Which budget pays for it

Therapeutic supports are usually funded from Capacity Building, most often the Improved Daily Living Skills category. Some sit elsewhere — positive behaviour support has its own line, and disability-related health supports are treated separately again.

This matters more than it used to, because the category your therapy sits in now determines whether it is affected by the October funding reset. Our guide to NDIS budget categories explains how Core, Capacity Building and Capital fit together.

What changes from 1 October 2026

From 1 October 2026 the NDIA is resetting two budget categories. Improved daily living skills funding is reduced by 10 per cent, applied when your plan is next created, reassessed or renewed — not on 1 October itself. Since most therapy sits in that category, most participants using allied health will see some reduction at their next plan.

Two things soften it. First, the reduction applies to the non-exempt amount. Disability-related health supports are exempt, as are high intensity supports and intensive and complex behaviour supports. If part of your therapy falls into one of those groups, that part is not reduced.

Second, the reduction is applied to your allocation, not your spending. If you have not been using your full therapy budget, the practical effect is smaller than 10 per cent.

Our full explainer covers the timing, the exemption lists and the plan variation pathway: NDIS funding changes from 1 October 2026.

How the therapist actually gets paid

This is where the way your plan is managed changes things most. The NDIS states that how an allied health provider gets paid depends on how the participant’s budget is managed, and on whether the plan sits in the NDIA’s old or new computer system.

The practical consequence is about supply. Many good allied health practices are not NDIS-registered, because registration carries an audit and compliance cost that a small private practice often will not take on. If you are agency-managed, those practices are closed to you. Plan management is the usual way participants open that door without taking on the paperwork of self-managing — our guide to what plan management unlocks covers the trade-offs, and you can compare independent NDIS plan managers if you are weighing it up.

Price limits, and who they bind

The NDIS sets maximum prices for supports. Two things about them are widely misunderstood.

The document changed name and date. What most people still call the price guide, and what was until recently the “NDIS pricing arrangements and price limits”, is now the NDIS pricing schedule. The 2026–27 schedule took effect on 24 September 2026, and it is the first made under the Minister’s new pricing determination power. If you are reading an older figure quoted on a provider’s website, check it against the current schedule.

The caps do not bind everyone. The NDIS is explicit that the maximum prices in the schedules apply to NDIA-managed and plan-managed participants only. For those participants, a provider cannot charge above the limit and the NDIA will not pay a claim above it. Self-managed participants are not covered by that protection — you can agree a higher price with a therapist, but the extra comes out of the same budget.

You can check the current figures on the NDIS pricing arrangements page. We have deliberately not quoted therapy hourly rates here, because they sit inside a schedule that is revised and we would rather send you to the current version than risk a stale number.

Four ways to make the budget go further

With most therapy budgets reducing at the next plan, these are the levers that are actually available.

Questions to ask before you book

• Are you NDIS-registered, and does that matter for how my plan is managed? It only matters if you are agency-managed.
• What is your hourly rate, and is it at or below the current pricing schedule limit? If you are plan-managed or agency-managed it cannot legally exceed it.
• Do you charge for travel, report writing or non-face-to-face time? All three are claimable in defined circumstances and all three surprise people.
• Will a student or provisional practitioner be involved, and at what rate? Reasonable, but it needs your consent in the service agreement.
• Will you write my plan reassessment report, and is that time charged? The NDIS expects therapists to write these; the time is generally billable.
• How will you invoice? Plan-managed participants should confirm the therapist is willing to invoice a plan manager — most are, but confirm before the first session.

If you are choosing a plan manager alongside a therapist, budget visibility is the thing that matters most in a year when the category is shrinking. Our comparison of NDIS plan managers sets out how each one reports spending, and plan management is funded separately by the NDIA at no cost to your other supports. For the wider picture, start with how the NDIS works.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Checked on 28 September 2026. The NDIS is mid-reform and pricing is now set by ministerial determination, so verify current figures before making a decision.

• Guide to working as an allied health provider — NDIS. Therapeutic supports definition, payment routes, students and provisional psychologists.
• Pricing arrangements — NDIS. The 2026–27 pricing schedule, effective 24 September 2026, and who the maximum prices apply to.
• Funding changes for NDIS supports — Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. The October reset and its exemptions.