NDIS & aged care glossary

NDIS

National Disability Insurance Scheme

The NDIS is Australia’s national scheme for funding supports for people with permanent and significant disability. Each participant receives an individual plan with funded budgets, and chooses the providers who deliver their supports. It is administered by the National Disability Insurance Agency and funds around 700,000 Australians.

NDIA

National Disability Insurance Agency

The NDIA is the Commonwealth agency that administers the NDIS. It assesses eligibility, approves participant plans and budgets, sets the price limits providers may charge, and pays claims submitted by registered providers. It is distinct from the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, which regulates provider conduct.

Participant

A participant is a person whose access to the NDIS has been approved and who holds an individual, funded NDIS plan. The term is used in place of “client” or “patient” throughout the scheme, reflecting that the person directs their own supports rather than receiving a service allocated to them.

Plan management

Plan management is where a registered plan manager holds and pays a participant’s NDIS funding on their behalf. The plan manager receives provider invoices, checks them against the participant’s budget and the price guide, claims from the NDIA, and pays the provider — while the participant keeps full choice of provider.

Self-management

Self-management is where an NDIS participant holds and administers their own plan funding. They pay providers directly, claim reimbursement from the NDIA through the myplace portal, and keep records for audit. Self-managing participants may use any provider, registered or not, and may negotiate prices above the published limits.

Support coordination

Coordination of Supports

Support coordination is a funded NDIS support in which a coordinator helps a participant understand and use their plan: finding and connecting providers, negotiating service agreements, building the participant’s capacity to manage their own supports, and resolving problems when supports break down.

SIL

Supported Independent Living

SIL is NDIS funding for the support a participant needs to live in a shared or individual home — help with daily tasks, personal care and overnight assistance. It pays for the support workers, not the housing itself. SIL is quoted per participant based on an agreed roster of care for the household.

SDA

Specialist Disability Accommodation

SDA is NDIS funding for the physical dwelling a participant with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs lives in. It pays the housing provider for accessible, purpose-built housing. SDA covers the building; SIL covers the support workers inside it, and the two are funded and claimed separately.

Core Supports

Core Supports is the NDIS budget category funding everyday assistance: personal care, help with household tasks, community participation, transport, and consumables. It is the most flexible category — funding generally moves freely between most Core support items — and it is where the majority of a typical participant’s plan sits.

Capacity Building

Capacity Building is the NDIS budget category funding supports that build a participant’s skills and independence rather than assisting with daily tasks. It covers therapy, employment supports, improved living arrangements, and support coordination. Unlike Core, funding is allocated to specific sub-categories and cannot be moved between them.

Capital Supports

Capital Supports is the NDIS budget category funding one-off, higher-cost items: assistive technology, home and vehicle modifications, and Specialist Disability Accommodation. Funding is tied to specific approved items, usually requires a quote and often an allied health assessment, and cannot be spent on anything else.

Reasonable and necessary

“Reasonable and necessary” is the statutory test the NDIA applies when deciding whether to fund a support. The support must relate to the participant’s disability, represent value for money, be likely to be effective and beneficial, take account of informal supports, and not be the responsibility of another service system such as health or education.

Plan nominee

A plan nominee is a person appointed to act for an NDIS participant in relation to their plan — making decisions about supports, or doing things the participant would otherwise do themselves. Nominees are appointed by the NDIA, usually at the participant’s request, and must act according to the participant’s wishes where possible.

Service agreement

A service agreement is the written agreement between an NDIS participant and a provider setting out what supports will be delivered, how much they cost, and the terms covering cancellations, changes and ending the arrangement. The NDIS Practice Standards expect one for each participant, agreed before supports begin.

Roster of care

RoC

A roster of care is the modelled weekly staffing pattern for a Supported Independent Living household, used to quote each participant’s SIL funding. It sets out the shifts required, their times and ratios, and how overnight support is provided, and forms the basis of the amount the NDIA approves.

Support ratio

1:2, 1:3, 2:1 support

A support ratio describes how many workers support how many participants at once. 1:1 is one worker to one participant. 1:2 and 1:3 mean one worker shared between two or three participants, with the cost apportioned. 2:1 means two workers are required for a single participant, and both are claimed.

SCHADS Award

Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010

The SCHADS Award is the modern award covering most Australian disability and community services employees. It sets minimum pay rates by classification level, and the rules for penalties, overtime, broken shifts, sleepovers, on-call, travel reimbursement and minimum engagement periods. Compliance is a legal obligation, not a payroll preference.

Broken shift

A broken shift is a shift split into two or three separate periods of work in one day, with unpaid breaks between them. Under the SCHADS Award a broken shift attracts an allowance, and the number of breaks determines which allowance applies. It is common in disability support, where morning and evening routines sit hours apart.

Sleepover

A sleepover is an arrangement where a support worker stays overnight at a participant’s home to be available if needed, and is permitted to sleep. Under the SCHADS Award it attracts a flat sleepover allowance rather than hourly pay, plus payment at the appropriate rate for any period the worker is actually woken to work.

Active and passive overnight

Active overnight support means a worker is awake and working through the night and is paid hourly at the applicable rate. Passive overnight, or a sleepover, means the worker is present and available but permitted to sleep, and is paid an allowance. Which applies depends on the participant’s assessed overnight support needs.

Casual loading

Casual loading is the additional percentage paid to casual employees in place of paid leave and notice entitlements. Under the SCHADS Award it is 25 per cent of the minimum hourly rate. It applies to the base rate, and the interaction between casual loading and penalty rates is set by the award rather than chosen by the employer.

Minimum engagement

Minimum engagement is the shortest period an employee must be paid for when called to work, regardless of how long the shift actually runs. Under the SCHADS Award, disability support workers generally have a two-hour minimum for part-time and casual engagements, with some exceptions for particular arrangements.

Contractor vs employee

A contractor runs their own business and invoices for services; an employee works in the employer’s business under its direction. The distinction is decided on the substance of the relationship, not the label in the agreement. Misclassifying an employee as a contractor exposes a provider to back-pay, superannuation and penalty liabilities.

NDIS Price Guide

NDIS Support Catalogue, Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits

The NDIS Price Guide, published with the Support Catalogue, sets the maximum prices registered providers may charge for each support item. It is updated at least annually, usually effective 1 July, and defines item numbers, unit types, price limits by state grouping, and the rules for cancellations, travel and non-face-to-face time.

Support item number

A support item number is the code identifying a specific NDIS support for claiming, in the form 01_011_0107_1_1. It encodes the support category, the item, and the registration group. Every claimed line must carry a valid item number that matches the support actually delivered and sits within the participant’s funded budget.

Bulk payment request

Bulk upload, claim file

A bulk payment request is the CSV file a registered NDIS provider uploads to the myplace portal to claim for many supports at once. Each row carries the participant’s NDIS number, the support item number, service dates, quantity and price. The NDIA validates the file and returns a result per line.

Remittance advice

A remittance advice is the statement issued when a payer settles invoices, listing which invoices were paid, the amounts, and any adjustments. In the NDIS, providers receive remittance from the NDIA for agency-managed claims and from plan managers for plan-managed invoices, and use it to reconcile payments against what was claimed.

ABA file

Direct Entry file, Cemtex file

An ABA file is the fixed-width text format Australian banks accept for batch payments. A plan manager or provider generates one to pay many provider invoices or staff wages in a single upload. Each record carries BSB, account number, amount and lodgement reference, with a total record the bank checks against.

Provider travel

Travel — labour costs, non-labour transport

Provider travel is the claimable cost of a support worker travelling to deliver a support. The NDIS treats it as two separate things: labour cost, being the worker’s time in transit, and non-labour transport, being the running cost of the vehicle claimed per kilometre. They use different support items and different rules.

PRODA

Provider Digital Access

PRODA is the Australian Government’s identity verification service used to access provider portals, including the NDIS myplace provider portal and Services Australia systems. Each person has an individual PRODA account with two-factor authentication, linked to the organisations they act for.

PACE

PACE is the NDIA’s newer computer system for administering participant plans and provider payments, progressively replacing the older portal. Under PACE, participants nominate providers ("my providers") for particular support types, and providers see plan and budget information for participants who have endorsed them.

Progress notes

Case notes, shift notes

Progress notes are the written record of what happened during a support: what was delivered, how the participant responded, and anything of concern. They are the primary evidence that a claimed support was actually provided, and they are what an auditor, a plan reviewer or a coroner reads when a decision is questioned.

EVV

Electronic Visit Verification

Electronic Visit Verification is the electronic capture of when and where a support actually started and finished, typically by a worker clocking in and out on a phone with GPS. It provides evidence that a claimed support was delivered at the stated time and place, replacing self-reported timesheets.

Reportable incident

A reportable incident is an event a registered NDIS provider must report to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. The categories are death, serious injury, abuse or neglect, unlawful sexual or physical contact, sexual misconduct, and the unauthorised use of a restrictive practice. Initial reports are due within 24 hours or five business days depending on category.

Restrictive practice

A restrictive practice is any action that restricts the rights or freedom of movement of a person with disability. The regulated types are seclusion, chemical, mechanical, physical and environmental restraint. Their use must be authorised under state or territory law, set out in a behaviour support plan, and reported to the NDIS Commission monthly.

NDIS Commission

NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission is the independent body regulating NDIS providers and workers. It registers providers, enforces the NDIS Practice Standards and Code of Conduct, operates worker screening, receives reportable incidents and complaints, and can ban individuals or revoke a provider’s registration.

NDIS Practice Standards

The NDIS Practice Standards set the quality requirements registered providers must meet, covering rights and responsibilities, governance and operational management, the delivery of supports, and the provider’s environment. Registered providers are audited against the standards relevant to the registration groups they hold.

NDIS Worker Screening Check

NDISWC

The NDIS Worker Screening Check is a national assessment of whether a person poses a risk to people with disability. It is required for workers in risk-assessed roles with registered providers, is issued by a state or territory screening unit, is valid for five years, and is continuously monitored for new information.

Support at Home

SAH

Support at Home is the Australian Government program for aged care delivered in a person’s own home, replacing Home Care Packages and the Short-Term Restorative Care Programme. Older people are assessed into classification levels with a quarterly budget, and contribute to costs according to their means and the category of service.

Home Care Package

HCP

A Home Care Package was the Australian Government’s coordinated home aged-care funding, allocated at one of four levels according to assessed need. Funds accrued in an individual budget managed by an approved provider. Home Care Packages are being replaced by the Support at Home program.

My Aged Care

My Aged Care is the Australian Government’s entry point for aged-care services. It handles registration, screening and referral to assessment, and holds the client record that follows an older person through assessment, service allocation and provider referral. Providers receive and accept referrals through the My Aged Care provider portal.

SIRS

Serious Incident Response Scheme

The Serious Incident Response Scheme requires approved aged-care providers to manage and report serious incidents involving people receiving care. Reportable categories include unreasonable use of force, unlawful or inappropriate sexual conduct, neglect, psychological or emotional abuse, unexpected death, stealing or coercion, and unexplained absence.

DEX

Data Exchange

The Data Exchange is the Australian Government’s reporting platform for funded community and aged-care programs. Providers report client details, the sessions of service delivered, and optionally outcomes data, on a defined reporting period cycle. Continued funding is conditional on reporting.