When we create your plan with you, we’ll discuss what supports you need for the impairments that meet the disability or early intervention requirements.
We want to help you pursue your goals, increase your independence, and help you work, study and join social activities.
The NDIS will only fund a support if it meets all the reasonable and necessary criteria. We also won’t fund a support if the law says we can’t fund it.
We explain the reasonable and necessary criteria in more detail further down.
What supports can you get outside the NDIS?
Before we decide what reasonable and necessary supports to fund in your plan, we’ll first discuss what other supports may be available outside the NDIS.
This is an important information-gathering step. For example, there may be mainstream, community and informal supports that suit you.
There are many supports you can get outside the NDIS. Other government and community services provide supports to all Australians, including people with disability.
And your friends, family, and other people you know can often be your best supports.
To find out more about supports you can get outside the NDIS, go to Creating your plan.
It’s important we gather this information and help you access these services before we consider what reasonable and necessary supports we can fund.
That way, we can help make sure you’re able to access mainstream, community, and informal supports wherever possible.
For more information, go to Mainstream and community supports.
What types of supports may be included in your plan?
Your plan may include ‘general supports’ and ‘reasonable and necessary supports’.
General supports
General supports are the coordination, strategic or referral services and activities we provide or arrange to be provided, for you. They’re how we help you develop your plan and connect with support and activities in your community. This includes the support you get from your early childhood coordinator or local area coordinator to connect to mainstream, community, and informal supports. You don’t need to pay for your general supports from your plan as the NDIS pays for them directly.
Reasonable and necessary supports
Reasonable and necessary supports are the NDIS supports we fund or provide in your plan to meet your disability support needs. NDIS supports need to be for your impairments that meet the disability or early intervention requirements, or both. NDIS supports are the services, items, and equipment we can fund or provide under the NDIS.
For information on what supports are considered NDIS supports, go to NDIS supports.
The laws for the NDIS tell us what we can fund in your plan. All supports we fund in a plan need to meet all the criteria set out in these laws. We call these the NDIS funding criteria.
- We’ll check your support types and amounts of support will complement each other to help you fulfil an ordinary life. Any funded supports must be an NDIS support that is right for you.
- It must not be a type of support the law says we can’t fund or provide.
Each support must be reasonable and necessary individually, but the supports must also be reasonable and necessary when considered as a package of supports.