NDIA Accountability Project

Impact on providers of proposed changes to NDIS integrity and safeguarding measures

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NDIS Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025

February 2026

About Allied Health Professions Australia and the allied health sector

Allied Health Professions Australia (AHPA) is the recognised national peak association for Australia’s allied health professions. AHPA’s membership consists of 30 full member organisations, each representing a particular allied health profession. AHPA collectively represents over 195,000 allied health professionals and AHPA works on behalf of the Australian allied health sector.

AHPA’s Disability Working Group (the Working Group) comprises policy and clinician representatives drawn from the range of AHPA’s members that provide services to people with disability including through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The Working Group is therefore informed by the views and experiences of both individual allied health professions and the broader allied health sector.

AHPA and its member associations are committed to ensuring that all Australians can access safe, evidence-based services to assist them to realise their potential for physical, social, emotional and intellectual development.

Response

AHPA thanks the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for the opportunity to provide feedback on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 (‘the Bill’). The allied health sector plays a vital role in supporting people with disability and the sector provides a range of NDIS services and supports to participants. As the peak body for the allied health sector, representing providers, our response focuses on the impact on providers of the proposed changes. We acknowledge that some of our commentary will relate to the work needed to support the operationalisation and implementation of the Bill.

Schedule 1

AHPA generally supports Schedule 1 of the Bill and the introduction of appropriate integrity and safeguarding measures to protect both the NDIS and Scheme participants. This includes key elements of the amendments, such as strengthening the penalty framework to provide a broader and more flexible range of enforcement options, extending banning orders to remove unsuitable individuals from the Scheme, restricting inappropriate promotional activities, and enhancing the role and powers of the regulator.

AHPA emphasises, however, that any improvements to integrity and safeguarding measures must be carefully balanced with the need to protect service accessibility and availability, so as not to unintentionally undermine participant access to supports or the sustainability of the provider market.

AHPA supports a suite of penalty options to address people engaging in behaviours that contravene the legislation. AHPA notes that the proposed amendments include substantial increases to the maximum penalties available, and it is not clear how these increases have been calibrated or how they align with penalty settings across other parts of the care economy. For example, some of the proposed penalties differ from those applying under the Aged Care Act. AHPA emphasises the importance of ensuring that enforcement responses appropriately distinguish between deliberate or reckless misconduct and genuine, inadvertent errors made by

providers, and that any penalties applied are proportionate to the nature and severity of the conduct.

AHPA further emphasises the need for clear and detailed information and guidance to support the effective implementation and operationalisation of the legislation. This includes guidance on key definitions such as “risk” and “serious harm”, which are used throughout the Bill and are open to interpretation. By way of example, the proposed amendments under Part 6 relating to information-gathering powers, including reduced timeframes for the provision of information, may be appropriate in circumstances where there is a genuine and immediate risk to participant safety. However, in the absence of clear guidance, providers must be protected from being required to comply with shortened timeframes where such urgency is not warranted.

Providers, including allied health professionals, currently operate in an environment where important determinants of risk and harm, such as planning, sit outside their control. AHPA is interested in further information on provider obligations and consequences, where risk of harm is influenced by more than their own role. AHPA continues to hear from allied health providers that they are routinely delivering services beyond what is funded in participants’ plans in order to meet their professional and ethical obligations to minimise the risk of harm. In many cases, participant plans do not provide sufficient funding to enable the level or type of service required for safe and appropriate care. Where providers are unable to continue delivering unfunded services, and harm arises as a result of inadequate plan funding and subsequent care limitations, there is a need for clear guidance on where responsibility and accountability rest.

In principle AHPA supports the inclusion of anti-promotion orders within the Bill, while noting there is limited detail on what this will include. Allied health professionals, including those registered through Ahpra and many of the self-regulating professionals certified through their peak professional association, already have restrictions imposed on them in relation to appropriate advertising. We are supportive of actions to ensure all providers are not providing misleading promotional activities.

Schedule 2 AHPA is generally supportive of measures to improve the claims process under Part 2 of the Bill. However, AHPA emphasises that clear guidance and appropriate implementation support will be essential to ensure these changes reduce non-compliant claims and do not result in unintended delays to provider payments.

AHPA notes that previous NDIS reforms have required providers to make rapid changes to operational systems, often within compressed timeframes. To support effective implementation, there must be adequate resourcing, clear and timely information, and realistic transition periods to enable providers to update systems, train staff and comply with new claiming requirements.

There are many delays in the system at present, such as delays to access, plan approval and payment. We hear regularly from providers that payment of services that are valid and already delivered are often rejected or heavily delayed. This can significantly impact on businesses viability and continuity of supports for participants. Whilst we support that the Scheme must be protected from fraud, we hear many examples where providers are chasing up payments for services that were genuinely delivered. AHPA notes that the proposed amendments in the Bill provide the NDIA with the ability to request further information prior to the release of a payment.

  • However, the Bill does not include safeguards to ensure such requests are reasonable, proportionate or time-limited. AHPA recommends that consideration be given to mechanisms that balance the need for fraud prevention and scheme integrity with the importance of minimising unnecessary information requests, prolonged payment delays and funding holds in circumstances where services have been appropriately delivered.

  • AHPA is aware of recent instances in which allied health providers and participants have been required to supply clinical case notes to support the payment of claims. While the Bill outlines circumstances in which information or documents may be requested, including as evidence for payment, AHPA considers that further work is required to develop and embed safeguards governing the access to, use and protection of confidential and sensitive information. In particular, AHPA emphasises that clinical case notes contain highly sensitive personal and health information and must remain subject to strict protections. Access to such material should be limited to clinicians with appropriate qualifications and expertise, who possess the necessary clinical understanding to determine whether requests are reasonable and proportionate, and who are bound by relevant ethical and professional standards in their handling and interpretation of this information. AHPA further notes that where providers are required to respond to requests for additional clinical information, including case notes, they should receive reasonable reimbursement from the NDIA for the time and administrative burden involved, consistent with arrangements under other compensation schemes and funding programs. Any information- gathering powers exercised under the Bill must be implemented in a manner that ensures full compliance with applicable privacy and data protection legislation.

  • As significant reforms to the NDIS are imminent, particularly through the introduction of New Framework Planning, this Bill presents an important opportunity to embed stronger legislative safeguards and protections. This should include a clear focus on robust review and appeal rights, as well as appropriate safeguards relating to the Support Needs Assessment and budget-setting processes. Based on information available to date, AHPA is particularly concerned about the absence of explicit requirements for allied health expertise within the proposed assessor workforce, and the limited role for allied health input in the assessment process. Given the central role of allied health professionals in understanding functional impact, support needs and risk, this raises concerns about the potential for inappropriate or unsafe outcomes for participants. AHPA calls for further safeguards to be considered within this Bill to protect participants from potential harms arising from the implementation of New Framework Planning, and to ensure that assessment and planning decisions are informed by appropriate clinical expertise and subject to effective oversight and review.

  • Overall, while AHPA recognises and supports the importance of safeguarding and maintaining the integrity of the NDIS, we emphasise the need for a proportionate approach. Safeguarding and integrity measures must be carefully balanced with the need to maintain service accessibility and availability for participants. Safegards should not create an operating environment in which providers perceive participation in the Scheme to be overly risky or unsustainable. Such outcomes would risk reducing the diversity and capacity of the provider market and limiting participant choice and control, with disproportionate impacts in regional, rural and remote communities.

  • From an allied health perspective, these concerns are heightened by existing workforce shortages, and the underutilisation of allied health supports within the Scheme. Allied health professionals

  • are university-qualified and already subject to robust regulation, either through Ahpra or, for self- regulated professions, through their relevant professional associations. Any additional regulatory requirements imposed through the NDSI should therefore be proportionate and explicitly recognise the significant pre-existing regulatory and professional standards that already govern allied health practice.

  • As the national peak body for allied health, AHPA welcomes ongoing engagement to support sector readiness and to assist in the effective implementation of legislative reform.