Top tips to help your patients access the NDIS

The clinical experience of general practitioners is crucial in helping people with disability access the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), to confirm a person’s disability is permanent and significant.

The NDIS was never intended to replace health responsibilities for diagnosing and treating medical conditions, so the most important way GPs can help people with disability with their access request is by providing detailed information about the functional impact of the person’s impairment.

Your report or responses in the Access Request Form or Supporting Evidence Form should describe to what degree a person with disability experiences substantially reduced functional capacity in their day to day life.

Here are some tips for completing the Access Request Form:

1. Allow enough time during the consultation to complete the Access Request Form, Supporting Evidence Form, or your report.
2. Be specific with your responses and stay focused on evidence that describes the functional impact of the impairment.
3. Clearly explain how the person’s impairment results in substantially reduced functional ability to communicate, interact socially, learn, be mobile, care for themselves, and/or self-manage on a daily basis for their lifetime.
4. Call your local NDIS Local Area Coordination Partner in the Community during the consult if you need more assistance to complete the form.

Guides such as ‘A GP & Allied Health Professional’s guide to the NDIS’ and the Brisbane North PHN ‘General Practitioner Toolkit – Understanding your role in the NDIS’, can you provide the right level and quality of information.

Carers Queensland is the NDIS Local Area Coordination Partner in the Community for the Sunshine Coast and Gympie region. Regular information sessions throughout the region are held to help people access and use the NDIS. These sessions can be tailored for and presented to GP’s. For more information about access support, please contact Carers Queensland on the details below.

Your local Carers Queensland NDIS LAC PITC Program office