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Topic library
Understanding and navigating the NDIS
Getting into the scheme
Eligibility, access requests and what to do if you're declined.
Running your plan
Management types, budget categories and price limits.
Using your funding
Therapies, community participation and getting value from your plan.
Home and living
SIL, SDA and ILO — our separate guide library.
Eligibility and access
More than 717,000 Australians hold an NDIS plan, and a great many waited longer than they needed to before applying. These guides cover who qualifies, how functional impact is assessed, and what happens if the answer comes back no.
Who Is Eligible for the NDIS?
The four tests, the two access pathways, and the six functional domains every decision is framed around. Plus the evidence mistake that sinks more applications than anything else, and six common situations explained.
Not Eligible for the NDIS? What Your Options Are
Internal and external review pathways, state and territory services, foundational supports, Carer Gateway and My Aged Care. Ineligibility for the scheme isn't ineligibility for support.
Managing your plan and your funding
Two decisions shape how much your plan actually delivers: how it's managed, and how well you understand what each budget can buy. Both are easier to change than most people realise.
Self-Managed, Plan-Managed or Agency-Managed?
A straight comparison of the three options — who can use unregistered providers, who's bound by price limits, the real admin load of self-managing, and how to switch without drama.
Understanding Your NDIS Plan Budgets
Core, Capacity Building and Capital explained — including which funding is flexible and which is locked, where consumables sit, and why so much funding goes unspent each year.
NDIS Price Limits and How They Affect Your Supports
How the Pricing Arrangements work, the annual 1 July update, who must stay within the limits and who doesn't, and what happens when a provider charges above them.
Supports, therapies and everyday life
Funding sitting unspent helps nobody — and at your next reassessment, it tends to be read as funding you didn't need. These guides cover what your plan can actually buy.
What Does an Occupational Therapist Do?
How OTs assess daily living, recommend equipment and home modifications, and why an OT's functional assessment is the backbone of almost every housing and home-and-living request.
Using Your Funding for Social and Community Participation
What this Core category actually covers, how to use it for clubs, classes, volunteering and hobbies, and why it's one of the most underspent parts of most plans.
A note on scheme reform. The NDIS is in the middle of its most significant change since it began — to how supports are defined, how needs are assessed and how budgets are set, with foundational supports being developed alongside the scheme. Our guides are written to stay useful through that, but detail moves. Treat any blog, ours included, as orientation rather than authority, and confirm current rules at ndis.gov.au or on 1800 800 110.
When home and living is the question
If you've worked out the scheme basics and the real question is where you'll live and who'll support you, our second guide library goes deep on exactly that.
NDIS Home and Living Options
Fifteen guides covering Supported Independent Living, Specialist Disability Accommodation, Individualised Living Options, rosters of care, housemate matching, safeguards and moving out.
SIL, SDA, ILO, STA, MTA: Untangling the Alphabet
Five acronyms, five realistic scenarios and a decision framework — including the master key that dissolves most of the confusion.
How to Describe Your Home and Living Support Needs
The NDIA funds what you can evidence, not what you need. How to narrate a real day, log overnight support and write the paragraph families find hardest.
Questions the guides don't answer?
Most people need ten minutes with someone who does this daily more than they need another article. We'll help you work out where you stand — including when the honest answer involves a support we don't provide.
Or enquire online and we'll call you back within one business day.
