How to Refer to NDIS Counselling: What to Expect
WillA lot of people who contact me have been thinking about it for weeks. They know they have NDIS funding. They know counselling might help. But they are not sure how to actually make it happen. This post explains the full process, from checking your plan through to what the first session looks like.
First: check whether your plan covers counselling
Before you contact anyone, it is worth spending five minutes checking your plan. This saves a lot of back-and-forth later.
Counselling sits under the Capacity Building budget in an NDIS plan. The specific support category is Improved Daily Living, which has the budget code CB_Daily_Activity. If you open your plan document and look for that category, you will see whether you have funding there and how much.
Not every plan includes Improved Daily Living funding. Whether it is in your plan depends on what was discussed at your planning meeting and what goals were agreed at the time. If you cannot find it in your plan, that does not necessarily mean it is unavailable to you. It may mean it was not included yet, or that it is listed under a slightly different description.
If you are not sure what your plan says, there are a few ways to check. You can log into the myplace portal on the NDIS website and look at your funding breakdown there. You can ask your support coordinator or Local Area Coordinator to read the plan with you and explain what each category covers. You can also contact the NDIS directly on 1800 800 110. They can tell you what funding you have and what it can be used for.
One thing worth knowing before you do any of this: I am not a registered NDIS provider. That means I work with self-managed and plan-managed participants only. If your plan is agency-managed, I am not able to accept NDIS-funded bookings at this stage. Some agency-managed participants also pay for sessions privately, which is a separate arrangement. If you are not sure which type of management applies to your plan, check the front page of your plan document. It will say how each support category is managed.
What self-managed and plan-managed actually means for you
The way your plan is managed affects who handles the money. It does not change what you are eligible for or what we work on in sessions. But it does change the paperwork process, so it is worth understanding before you book.
If you are self-managed, you hold and manage your own NDIS funds. The NDIA deposits money into a dedicated bank account and you pay providers directly, then claim the money back through the myplace portal. You are not limited to registered NDIS providers. That means you can see a qualified counsellor who has chosen not to go through NDIS registration, which includes most small practices and sole practitioners. After each session with me, I send you an invoice. You submit that invoice through the portal. The claim is usually processed within a few business days and the money is transferred back to your account.
If you are plan-managed, a registered plan management organisation handles the financial side on your behalf. You choose who to see and what to do with your funding, but you do not need to interact with the portal yourself. After each session, I send an invoice directly to your plan manager. They process it and pay it from your Improved Daily Living budget. You do not see a bill. You do not pay upfront. The only thing you need to do is let me know who your plan manager is and provide their invoicing email address at the start.
In both cases, I keep my fees within the limits set by the NDIS Pricing Arrangements. The NDIS sets a maximum rate for counselling under the therapeutic supports line items, and I work within those limits. There are no additional charges above the NDIS rate for NDIS-funded sessions.
According to the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits, counsellors are funded under the therapeutic supports line items within Capacity Building. The relevant line item for counselling is Therapeutic Supports under CB_Daily_Activity.
Do you need a referral to access NDIS counselling?
No. You do not need a GP referral, a psychiatrist letter, or a formal document from your support coordinator. If you are self-managed or plan-managed and you have Improved Daily Living funding in your plan, you can contact me directly.
This is one of the things that surprises people who are used to accessing support through Medicare or other systems. Under Medicare's mental health plans, you do need a GP referral and you are limited to a set number of sessions per year. The NDIS works differently. Your plan is yours to use within your budget. You decide who you see and how often, up to the amount of funding available.
A support coordinator can help you understand your funding and make a referral if you would like that support. But they are not a gatekeeper. If you want to contact me yourself, you are welcome to do that without going through anyone else first.
The same applies to family members, carers, and support workers making contact on behalf of a participant. I am happy to receive enquiries from people supporting a participant, as long as the participant has given permission for their information to be shared. You do not need a formal consent form to make an initial enquiry. A brief explanation of the situation is enough to get the conversation started.
How to make contact and what to tell me
You can reach me by phone, email, or through the contact form on the Strong Foundation Support website.
When you get in touch, it helps to have a few things ready. Not because I need a long document, but because it means I can respond usefully rather than going back and forth with basic questions. The things that help most are: how your plan is managed (self-managed or plan-managed), whether you have confirmed you have Improved Daily Living funding, who your plan manager is if you are plan-managed, and a rough sense of what you are looking to address in counselling.
That last point does not need to be detailed or clinical. You do not need to arrive with a summary or a diagnosis. Something like "I've been struggling since my accident" or "my plan review is coming up and things have been really stressful" or "I was recently diagnosed and I'm not sure how to process it" is enough. The detail comes later.
If you are enquiring for someone else, let me know that and give a brief sense of the participant's situation and what support they are looking for. A support coordinator contacting me directly is a straightforward process. I have worked in the sector since 2018 and I understand what information is useful at the referral stage and what can wait until the first session.
The free 15-minute call
Before any sessions are booked, I offer a free 15-minute call. This is a practical conversation, not a therapy session. The purpose is to work out whether what I offer is the right fit for what you need.
In that call I will ask a few things. What has been going on. What you are hoping to get from counselling. Whether there are any practical considerations, like a strong preference for in-person sessions, or a need for telehealth because of location or transport. I will also ask whether there are any specific things that have made it hard to access support in the past, because that is useful information to have before we start.
You can ask me anything during this call. How I work. What approaches I use. What a typical session looks like. How I handle it if something comes up in a session that feels overwhelming. How invoicing works. How much notice I need for a cancellation. There are no off-limits questions at this stage.
This call exists because finding the right fit matters. Counselling involves a working relationship and not every counsellor suits every person. I would rather we both find that out in a short free call than after two or three paid sessions. If we speak and it becomes clear I am not the right person for what you need, I will say that directly and I will try to point you toward someone who might be a better match.
A lot of people are nervous before this call. That is completely understandable. In my experience, most people feel less anxious at the end of the call than at the start, whether or not they decide to go ahead. Having a conversation with someone who already understands how the NDIS works, and who has lived experience of disability themselves, tends to feel different from calling a service that sees NDIS participants as a category rather than a person.
What the invoicing process looks like in practice
I want to be specific about this because uncertainty around money is one of the main things that stops people from booking.
For plan-managed participants: at the end of each session I generate an invoice that meets NDIS requirements. It includes my name, ABN, the date of service, the support item description, the relevant line item number, and the session cost. I send that invoice directly to your plan manager's invoicing email. You do not need to do anything. Your plan manager pays it from your Improved Daily Living budget. Some plan managers are faster than others but the process is generally straightforward once it is set up.
For self-managed participants: after each session I send you the invoice by email. You log into the myplace portal, go to the payment request section, and submit the invoice details. The NDIA reviews and approves the claim, usually within a few business days, and transfers the money back to your nominated bank account. The first time takes a little longer because you are learning the system. After that it becomes routine.
One practical note for self-managed participants: you need to keep records of every invoice and every claim. The NDIA can audit self-managed plans and you need to be able to show that each claim matched a session that aligned with your plan goals. I keep records on my end as well, but it is worth having your own file, even if it is just a folder of emailed invoices.
If your plan manager has a specific invoicing portal or requires invoices in a particular format, let me know at the start. I am used to working with different plan managers and I can adapt my invoicing process to fit their requirements.
What the first session actually covers
The first session is a conversation. It is not a formal intake assessment, a diagnosis session, or a test. I want to understand what has been happening, what has brought you to counselling at this point, and what you are hoping to get from the work.
I will ask about your current situation, what has been most difficult recently, and what a useful outcome would look like for you. I will also ask a few questions about your background that help me understand context, things like whether you have had counselling before, whether there are other supports involved, and whether there is anything I should know about how you communicate or process information that would help me work with you effectively.
I do not require you to have the answers worked out before you arrive. It is fine to come in and say "I am not sure where to start." The first session is partly about getting some clarity on that together.
At the end of the first session, we will have a rough plan. How often it makes sense to meet, what the focus of the work will be, and what a reasonable timeframe looks like. Some people work with me weekly. Some come fortnightly. Some people have a specific issue they want to address in a shorter period. Others are dealing with something longer-term and want ongoing support. We work that out based on what you are dealing with and what is realistic.
Sessions run for 50 minutes. They are available in person in Cairns or via telehealth for participants anywhere in Australia. If you are outside Cairns, telehealth works well for the kind of work I do. It is not a lesser version of in-person. It is the same session delivered differently.
What I have noticed about the point before people reach out
Most people who contact me have been sitting on it for a while. Not days. Weeks, sometimes months. The thing that finally tips them into making contact is rarely a crisis. More often it is accumulated weight. Things have been building quietly and at some point it becomes clear that keeping it to themselves is not working.
I have worked with a lot of NDIS participants who have had poor experiences with support services in the past. Services that felt clinical, rushed, or like they were going through a process rather than actually listening. People who felt they had to perform their difficulty convincingly to be taken seriously. People who left appointments more tired than when they arrived.
I have lived experience of disability and I have worked in the NDIS sector as a support coordinator since 2018. Both of those things change how I approach this work. I am not starting from a textbook understanding of what it is like to have a disability or to deal with the NDIS system. The frustration, the fatigue, the pressure to justify your needs over and over again. I understand that from the inside. That does not mean I will assume your experience matches mine. But it does mean you are less likely to spend the first session explaining things that I already get.
You can find out more about how I work and what I focus on through the NDIS counselling page. If you want to understand what funding category covers counselling and how it works in more detail, there is also a post on what NDIS therapeutic support covers and how it works.
Does counselling need to be in my NDIS plan goals to be funded?
Yes. The NDIS requires that any support you claim is reasonable and necessary and connected to your disability and your plan goals. Counselling needs to link to something in your plan. This does not mean you need a goal that says "attend counselling." It means there needs to be a goal that counselling can reasonably support.
Common examples include goals around managing emotions, building daily living skills, improving relationships, adjusting to a diagnosis, or increasing participation in the community. If your plan includes goals like these, counselling is likely a fundable support under Improved Daily Living.
If your current plan does not include counselling or does not have clear goals that counselling supports, the place to address that is at your next plan review. You can request that therapeutic support be included by explaining how it connects to your disability and daily life. A support coordinator can help you build that case if you are not sure how to frame it.
If you have Improved Daily Living funding in your NDIS plan and you want to find out whether counselling is the right fit for where you are right now, you can reach me through the contact page. There is no obligation attached to making contact and no formal process before the first call.
Written by Allan Bunyan, CPCA — counsellor at Strong Foundation Support, Cairns. Allan works with adults and young people aged 14 and over, in person in Cairns and via telehealth across Australia.
