When would we decide not to change your plan?

When would we decide not to do a plan reassessment?

If you ask us to do a plan reassessment, we need to think about whether your current plan can meet your support needs. We also think about the reason you are asking for a plan reassessment.

Reasons we would decide to not do a plan reassessment include:

if you don’t have any new information or evidence
if your request is only about wanting more funding, or NDIS supports that other participants have
if informal, community or mainstream supports can meet your needs
if your plan is suspended
if your plan reassessment date is soon, we may decide to wait until then.

If you don’t have any new information or evidence

We generally won’t change your funding if there’s no new information about how your support needs have changed.

For example, we generally won’t do a plan change if:

you changed your mind about the NDIS supports you want after we approved your plan
there’s no evidence your disability support needs have changed. That is, you can still do the same things you could do when we approved your plan
there’s not enough evidence to show you need changes to your NDIS supports, such as more therapy.

Remember, you can give us new information or evidence anytime there is a change in your situation.

Learn more about what evidence do you need to give us before we create or change your plan ?

If your request is only about wanting more funding, or supports that other participants have

We generally won’t change your funding just because you want more NDIS supports, or the same supports as other participants.

This may include:

more funding because you’ve used all the funding in your plan, even though your situation hasn’t changed
extra NDIS supports because another participant has these supports
NDIS supports added to your plan without enough evidence showing why you need them
funding for NDIS supports that don’t relate to your disability support needs.

If informal, community or mainstream supports can meet your needs

We generally won’t change your funding if friends, family or other services can meet your needs.

For example, if you ask for things:

that are not NDIS supports
that we’d reasonably expect family or friends to do for you. For example, short-term care if the family members who usually support you are sick.

If your plan is suspended

We can’t do a plan change if your plan has been suspended.

This usually happens after:

you’ve been overseas for more than 6 weeks. However, there are some situations we can extend the 6-week period of your plan.
you don’t claim compensation you’re entitled to after we ask you to, for example, after you’ve had an injury.

Learn more about plan suspensions.

If your plan reassessment date is soon, we may decide to wait until then

When deciding to reassess your plan we must think about when we’d next be required to reassess it. This will depend on the reassessment date in your current plan.

We do this because it’s not practical for us to reassess your plan if your plan reassessment date is soon. For example, if your reassessment is in less than one month it’s likely that a planning meeting has already been organised. However, if your reassessment date is 6 months away it may be better to do one sooner.

When might we decide not to do a plan variation?

NDIS laws tell us when we can do a plan variation.

We’ll decide not to vary your plan if the request doesn’t meet the things the rules say about plan variations, or the following reasons.

For example:

your plan is suspended or ceased
you have flexible funding left in your plan that can be used
it is to avoid or replace an existing review or appeal pathway
we don't have enough evidence to support a variation
you’ve used all the funds in your plan quicker than specified in your plan, without evidence showing why this was needed
you’re requesting to self-manage or use a registered plan manager, but we think it’s an unreasonable risk to you. Learn more in Our Guideline – Creating your plan.

We’ll also decide not to vary your plan if we think we should do a plan reassessment instead. The reasons we may decide that your plan needs a reassessment instead of a variation are:

we have varied your plan several times and your plan isn’t meeting your needs, so we need to do a reassessment
we can’t vary your plan without looking at the other supports in it
your situation has changed significantly, and you need a reassessment
you’re wanting more funding to help with a new or changed goal, and the request is not minor
your informal, community or mainstream supports can’t meet your needs.

How can we support you?

If we decide not to change your plan, we can link you with other services who may be able to help you. Talk to your my NDIS contact, support coordinator or recovery coach about how they can help you get other supports you may need.

If you don’t agree with our decision not to change your plan, you can ask us for an internal review of that decision. This means another one of our staff, who wasn’t involved in the original decision, will look at whether we made the right decision.

Learn more about reviewing our decisions.