Understand and choose the right plan change request

Document 19

Guidance in this document is not approved for use unless you view it in PACE.

This article provides guidance for a complaints officer, early childhood partner, liaison officers (HLO/JLO), local area coordinator, participant support officer, planner (non-partnered area), planner delegate, review officer, access delegate, National Contact Centre or technical advisors to understand:

why it’s important to complete the Choose the Right Request in an Enquiry case
situations that don’t require a plan change or internal review of a decision
plan change requests
internal review requests (s100)
how to complete the Choose the Right Request in an enquiry case.

Recent updates

15 December 2025

Guidance updated to:

align with National Disability Insurance Scheme (Variation and Reassessment of Participants’ Plans) Rules 2025
strengthen why it’s important to use the Choose the Right Request tool.

10 November 2025

Guidance updated to explain:

when to use new article Action a request to explain a decision
all plan change requests must be submitted as a Participant plan change request unless you have delegation to make a plan change decision
the limitations of Enquiries and Choose the Right Request related to plan change or explanation of a decision requests.

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Before you start

You have:

received a plan change request and need to choose the next steps.
checked the request or enquiry was submitted by a person with the relevant authority and permission. Use article Check consent, nominee, child representative or self-representation authorities.

You have read and understood:

relevant sections of Our Guideline – Changing your plan (external). For example, What is a plan variation? and What is a plan reassessment?
relevant sections of Our Guideline – Reviewing our decisions (external). For example the list of reviewable decisions in section, What are internal and external reviews?
articles Understand and talk about a plan continuation in SAP CRM or Understand and talk about a plan continuation in PACE
article Understand milestones in a case.

Understand why it’s important to complete a Choose the Right Request in an Enquiry case

You need to use the choose the right request in the enquiry case for participant requested plan changes, reassessments and reviews. There are several plan change and review categories. It’s important you use this tool to make sure you choose the right request type. This can reduce delays in actioning the participant’s request.

The Participant Service Guarantee (external) requires NDIA staff to:

make a decision about whether or not to change a plan within 21 days of receiving a request. If we don’t make a decision within 21 days, we are taken to have decided not to vary or reassess the plan. This decision will be automatically reviewed
complete an internal review or review of reviewable decision (RoRD) within 60 days of receiving the request.

You need to follow the steps in section Complete the Choose the Right Request in an Enquiry case in this article.

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Situations that don’t require a plan change or internal review of a decision

The participant or authorised representative may request a change to their plan, a review of a decision or a plan continuation. However, there may be other ways to meet their needs. You need to choose the most suitable action for their request. Consider the following options.

Information or evidence provided in preparation for a plan reassessment or scheduled check-in

Information or evidence may need to be considered by a delegate right now and sometimes it’ll be for the next plan reassessment or scheduled check-in. For example, a participant has a new report from a therapist for their upcoming plan reassessment.

Participants or providers can submit information or evidence at any time. If you receive information or evidence, check it carefully and choose the most suitable action. To learn more, go to articles Add documents to a case and Add and link evidence to a case.

Implementation support

Participants may request a plan change because they’re finding it difficult to implement their plan.

Talk to the participant about an implementation meeting or a check-in to help them better understand their supports and how to use their plan. If the participant hasn’t had an implementation meeting you could:

ask if they’d like one and use article Offer an implementation meeting
book a discretionary check-in instead. Use article Understand types of check-ins.

Their my NDIS contact, support coordinator or psychosocial recovery coach can help them to implement their plan or utilise their budget. This may include linking to community supports or connecting with providers.

If the participant needs help to contact their local area coordinator or early childhood partner, create an enquiry case to request implementation support. Use article Create an enquiry case.

Request for an explanation of a decision

We usually explain decisions at the time they’re made by connecting with the person and sending them relevant correspondence.

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Sometimes the participant or their authorised representative may contact us later about a decision we’ve made. They can do this at any time. For example they may:

email their my NDIS contact
call the National Contact Centre
ask to discuss it during a check-in or implementation meeting.

All staff and partners need to help a person understand a decision. Talk to them about the decision using details from the decision tab on the person account. If it’s still unclear to them, ask if they would like the delegate to provide a formal explanation of the decision. To learn more about explaining decisions and requests for an explanation, go to article Action a request to explain a decision.

The participant wants to change their statement of goals and aspirations (s47)

The participant’s plan includes a statement of their goals and aspirations that tells their story.

This statement provides information about:

About Me and their life
Goals, or things they want to work towards
existing supports, including Informal, Community and Mainstream supports.

The participant or authorised representative can provide details about a change to their statement of goals and aspirations at any time. Check if that’s the only change the participant wants. If the participant confirms it’s the only change they want, don’t create a plan change request. You can update this without delegation.

You can action this by:

using article Complete a s47 request to update a participant’s goals, About Me and informal, community and mainstream supports
completing a check-in using article Create a check-in case
conducting an implementation meeting using article Create a plan implementation case.

PACE will automatically send the participant a copy of their varied plan within 7 days of updating their goals and aspirations. This will be sent using the participant’s preferred correspondence method.

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You need to make sure that the participant understands this isn’t a new plan. There’s no changes to funded supports, fund management or the plan reassessment date.

Feedback or complaints

A participant or authorised representative may contact us to give feedback about their experience with us. This could be a compliment, a complaint or general feedback. They may not be asking for a plan change.

Go to article Create a feedback and complaints case.

External review

The participant or authorised representative may not agree with an internal review decision. If they don’t agree, they can ask the Administrative Review Tribunal – ART (external) to review this decision. It’s called an external review. The participant must have received an internal review decision from the NDIA before they can submit an external review request. They can only ask for one internal review of each decision.

The participant or authorised representative must request the external review from the ART within 28 days of the internal review decision.

Note: to identify if the participant will need to contact the ART, go to the decision tab on the person account and check if an internal review case has been completed. To learn more, go to Our Guideline – Reviewing our decisions (external).

Plan change requests

The participant or authorised representative may request a plan change at any time. We can also decide to change their plan through a CEO-initiated plan variation or reassessment.

When a participant makes a request for a plan change, the delegate will use the information provided and make a decision about whether or not to change their plan. A plan variation or reassessment must be prepared with the participant.

To learn more, go to Our Guideline – Changing your plan (external).

Note: don’t link an enquiry case to a closed plan change or plan approval parent case. PACE will automatically close enquiry child cases linked to any closed cases of these types. The enquiry won’t be received or actioned by the decision maker.

Plan continuations

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The participant will receive a letter 116 days before their plan reassessment date. There are different letters and outcomes based on the recommended confidence levels generated in PACE. This letter may tell them we’d like to arrange a check-in meeting and what they’ll need to prepare.

For participants with a plan in PACE, the outcome could be:

a plan continuation without the need for a check-in. If they have a recommended confidence level of high, with no known concerns, we’ll continue their current NDIS supports for up to 12 months
a plan continuation recommendation after a reassessment check-in
a plan reassessment recommendation after a reassessment check-in.

Use these articles to help you choose the most suitable next steps for the participant’s situation and needs:

Understand types of check-ins
Understand and talk about a plan continuation in PACE.

Plan variation (s47A)

There are some situations where a participant’s current plan can be varied without the need to conduct a plan reassessment. This plan change type means we look at a part of their plan and decide whether to make changes to it.

We can vary a plan to:

add crisis or emergency supports due to a significant change in the participant’s NDIS support needs. This can be for a once-off support or for a specific period of time
include a new support as a once-off or for a specific period of time
change the fund management type
change the plan reassessment date.

Note: plans approved on or after 9 October 2024 have funding periods. You can’t complete fund management or change the plan reassessment date through a plan variation (s47A). To learn more, go to section Plan variation (s47A) in article Prepare to submit a plan change request.

This doesn’t create a new plan for the participant. They keep their current plan with the relevant changes.

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You can use Our Guideline – Changing your plan (external) for:

a full list of situations where we might vary a plan
information on variation requests for a minor change in funded supports.

A plan variation can be participant requested or CEO-initiated at any time.

You must submit all plan change requests in PACE as a Participant plan change request unless:

the participant or authorised representative specifically states they are requesting a plan variation (s47A)
you have delegation to make a plan change decision.

Plan reassessment (s48)

This plan change type means the whole plan is reassessed before the plan reassessment date. If we decide to reassess the plan, the participant will get a new plan. A plan reassessment can be a participant requested or CEO-initiated.

We can only reassess the plan if the participant has had a significant change in their need for NDIS supports due to a change in situation.

The situations we think about are:

if the participant’s functional capacity has changed
if the participant’s informal supports have changed
if the participant’s living situation has changed
if there has been a significant life transition, like starting or leaving school
if the participant’s right to compensation for personal injury from another Commonwealth, state or territory agency or under another insurance scheme has changed.

We may also think about if:

we’ve varied the participant’s plan several times but it’s not meeting their needs
the participant’s plan needs to change, and the changes don’t meet the s47A legislative requirements.

To learn more, go to section What is a plan reassessment? in Our Guideline – Changing your plan (external).

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You must submit all plan change requests in PACE as a Participant plan change request unless:

the participant or authorised representative specifically states they are requesting a plan reassessment (s48)
you have delegation to make a plan change decision.

Go to article Prepare to submit a plan change request.

Internal review requests (s100)

An internal review (s100) can be requested if the participant doesn’t agree with a decision we’ve made. This is also called a review of a reviewable decision (RoRD).

An internal review must be requested by the participant or authorised representative within 3 months of receiving the decision in writing. An internal review of a decision checks if we made the right decision under the law. We look at the facts and circumstances at the time of the internal review decision.

The Internal Review Branch manages requests for internal reviews. A delegate who wasn’t involved in the original decision will consider the evidence and information related to the decision and check if that decision is right. To learn more, go to Our Guideline – Reviewing our decisions (external).

The legislation tells us what types of decisions can be reviewed. These decisions are known as reviewable decisions. To learn more, go to Appendix 1: What decisions can we review? in Our Guideline – Reviewing our decisions (external).

Complete the Choose the Right Request in an Enquiry case

You need to use the Choose the Right Request in the Enquiry case to check if a plan change or internal review is needed.

From the Details tab on the Person Account, select Create Enquiry.
At Who is Making the Request?, select the relevant drop-down options for Requested By and Case Origin.
Select Next.
At Enquiry Details, select Review as the Enquiry Type.

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At Category, select Choose the Right Request, then select Next.
Complete the Risk Matrix and select Next.
From Request Questionnaire, follow the onscreen prompts to help you choose the right request. This will recommend the most suitable next steps for the request.
- If you select Yes at Is the participant wanting to understand how a decision was made?, you must go to article Action a request to explain a decision for your next steps after you close this enquiry. Don’t follow the onscreen guidance
- If you select Yes at Does the participant want to request a plan variation (s47A) or reassessment (s48)?, you must go to article Prepare to submit a plan change request for your next steps after you close this enquiry. Don’t follow the onscreen guidance.
Select Next.
Add Enquiry Notes.
At Enquiry Outcome, select Close Enquiry (Completed) if you don’t need to progress this enquiry.
At Select the closure reason, choose the most suitable option from the drop-down list.
Add Closure Comments in the free text field, if needed, then select Next.
At Review and Submit, check the details and select Submit.

Note: this doesn’t automatically create a new plan change or internal review case. You need to create the correct case yourself if that’s your next action.

Next steps

If the request you’re reviewing is a plan change, go to article Prepare to submit a plan change request then Create a participant plan change request.
If the request you’ve received is for an internal review, go to article Submit a request for an internal review (s100).

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Article labels

PACE user role names

No change.

Topics

No change.

Case names

No change.

Ownership

No change.

Version control

Version	Amended by	Brief Description of Change	Status	Date
11.0	AHB706	Class 1 Approval Guidance updated to explain: * when to use new article, Action a request to explain a decision * all plan change requests must be submitted as a Participant plan change request unless you have delegation to make a plan change decision * the limitations of Choose the Right Request related to plan	APPROVED	2025-10-27

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Version	Amended by	Brief Description of Change	Status	Date
12.0	AJG505	Class 2 approval Guidance updated to: * align with National Disability Insurance Scheme (Variation and Reassessment of Participants’ Plans) Rules 2025 * strengthen why it’s important to use the Choose the Right Request tool.	APPROVED	2025-12-08

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