NDIS letters and plans use a lot of their own words. Here's what the common ones mean, in everyday language. Each one links to the NDIS page it comes from, so you can check the official wording.
These sound the same but mean different things.
So you apply to the NDIS, and the letters and decisions you get come from the NDIA.
Source: NDIS, About the NDIS and NDIS, People that help you
Your NDIS plan is the document that sets out your goals and the total funding you can use to buy NDIS supports related to your disability. It also lists other help you can use for your goals, like community groups and mainstream services such as health and education.
Source: NDIS, Glossary
Funding for everyday activities and getting involved in your community, like help with personal care, household tasks, everyday items and getting around. This budget is flexible: you can usually use the total amount across its categories.
What Core Supports can pay for →
Source: NDIS, What are core supports
Funding to build skills and independence, so you can do more for yourself over time, for example therapy, training, or help finding work. Unlike Core Supports, this money is set for each category, so you can't move it from one category to another.
Funding for bigger, more expensive items: higher-cost assistive technology and equipment (like a powered wheelchair), home or vehicle modifications, and Specialist Disability Accommodation.
What Capital Supports can pay for →
Source: NDIS, What are capital supports
Funding in your plan for someone to help you understand and use your plan: finding and connecting with providers, and coordinating your supports. It sits in the Capacity Building budget, and not everyone gets it.
It's separate from how your money is managed (the next three words). You can have Support Coordination whichever way your plan is managed.
Source: NDIS, What are capacity building supports and NDIS, Guide to your management options
You (or your nominee or representative) pay your providers and keep the financial records yourself. It gives you the most flexibility and choice, and the most paperwork.
Source: NDIS, Self-managed funding
A registered plan manager pays your providers and keeps the financial records for you.
Source: NDIS, Plan-managed funding
The NDIA pays your providers for you. It's also called Agency-managed. You can only use NDIS-registered providers for this part of your plan.
You don't have to pick just one option. Different parts of a plan can be managed different ways, for example Core Supports self-managed and Capital Supports NDIA-managed.
Source: NDIS, NDIA-managed and NDIS, Guide to your management options
The NDIS's name for applying to join. You can make one by phone on 1800 800 110, with the Access Request form, or with help from a Local Area Coordinator or early childhood partner. The NDIA then decides whether you meet the rules to become a participant.
A plan reassessment is when the NDIA looks at your plan again and makes a new one. It usually happens before your plan ends, and you can ask for one sooner if your situation changes. You may still hear it called a "plan review".
For a smaller fix, like correcting a mistake, you can ask for a plan variation instead. Both are different from an Internal Review, which is about disagreeing with a decision.
Source: NDIS, Changing your plan
If you disagree with an NDIA decision, you can ask for an internal review. Someone at the NDIA who didn't make the original decision looks at it again to check it was right under the law.
What to do if you disagree, step by step →
Source: NDIS, Guide to decision reviews
If an internal review doesn't change the outcome, you can ask the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART), which is independent of the NDIA, to review the decision. You have to do the internal review first.
External review and free help, explained →
Source: NDIS, Guide to decision reviews and Administrative Review Tribunal, National Disability Insurance Scheme
The test the NDIA uses to decide whether it will fund a support. The NDIS only funds a support if it meets all of the reasonable and necessary criteria, for example that it's related to your disability, likely to work, value for money, and not something better provided by another service like health or education.
The NDIS also publishes official lists of what is, and isn't, an NDIS support.
Source: NDIS Our Guidelines, Reasonable and necessary criteria and NDIS, What are NDIS supports
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