NDIS Travel Cuts: Impact on Remote Participants
When Services Stop Coming: How NDIS Travel Cuts Will Impact Remote Australians
By Allan Bunyan Strong Foundation Support
From July 1st, 2025, new changes to the NDIS price guide will quietly go into effect. Most people won’t notice it in the cities. But if you live outside a major centre if you’re in a place like Mossman, Mareeba, or Mount Is the impact might be massive.
Why?
Because one of the biggest changes is that travel time for allied health providers will now be paid at only 50% of their hourly rate. And that means, for a lot of regional and remote participants, their therapy support might just disappear.
Not because they’ve done anything wrong.
Not because their plan was cut.
But because their provider simply can’t afford to get there anymore.
Here’s What’s Changing
Every year the NDIA updates the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and this year’s review includes:
A 50% reduction in billable travel time for therapists
No annual price indexation (CPI freeze) for most allied health supports
Rate cuts for physiotherapy, podiatry, and dietetics
A slight increase for psychology, but only on paper, as regional loadings have been stripped
The result? Many therapists who used to drive long distances to serve small or isolated communities will now need to scale back, restructure, or withdraw from those areas altogether.
Let’s Talk About the People Affected Not Just the Providers
The media coverage so far has focused mostly on what providers are losing. But here’s what I want to say loud and clear:
📣 We need to be talking about how participants will manage without those services.
In a place like Cairns or Innisfail, access is already patchy. If you live out in the Tablelands or up the Cape, you may only have one speechie or OT that even visits your region. If that service stops it’s not just inconvenient. It’s life-altering.
Because here’s the reality for many NDIS participants in remote Australia:
There’s no accessible public transport.
Taxis and rideshares are either non-existent or unaffordable.
Many people don’t have their own vehicle let alone modified vans or support to travel independently.
So when someone suggests “just travel to town “they’re ignoring the actual barriers that exist every day for people living with disability in regional Queensland.
"Your Therapist Can’t Come Anymore"
That’s the phone call some families are already receiving.
One day you're seeing your allied health team regularly building capacity, making progress.
The next day, your provider says they can't continue travel to your location because they’re no longer being paid enough to cover fuel, time, or staff wages.
And what’s the plan then?
Switch to telehealth? Not always appropriate, especially for children or anyone with sensory, communication, or behavioural needs.
Try a different provider? There might be none within a 300km radius.
Wait and hope someone else takes over? That’s not a strategy that’s a shutdown.
The truth is, this decision is going to hit the most vulnerable participants the hardest the people in outer regions, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and areas already struggling to retain disability professionals.
NDIA’s Position: It's About Value for Money
The NDIA has framed the change as an effort to improve efficiency, saying that participant plans are being drained too quickly by travel charges.
And yes we all want value for money. Participants should be able to use their plan without watching half of it disappear into fees.
But here's the catch: value only matters if you can actually access the service in the first place.
If the only physio within 500km stops coming, it doesn’t matter whether their rate was fair or not. The real cost is that someone loses their therapy altogether.
This isn’t about people rorting the system. It’s about a system that wasn’t designed for the scale of our country, and the real-world distances involved in regional service delivery.
So What Can Participants Do?
Here’s what I recommend right now, especially if you live in a rural or regional area:
✅ Check in with your current providers
Ask directly: Will they continue to travel to your location under the new pricing rules?
✅ Review your plan’s transport and core supports
There may be flexible budget areas that can support local travel or alternate arrangements.
✅ Look into mixed models of delivery
For some people, a mix of in-person and telehealth might help stretch access but this has to be planned carefully.
✅ Ask your support coordinator or plan manager to help advocate
If you’re at risk of losing essential supports, escalate that. NDIA Planners need to hear directly from participants when plans or pricing rules aren’t working.
✅ Talk to someone who understands
At Strong Foundation Support, this is exactly the kind of situation we help people navigate especially if you don’t have a support coordinator or your plan doesn’t fund one.
Why This Hits Close to Home
I’ve worked with families across Far North Queensland from Mareeba to the Cape and I’ve seen how much effort it takes just to get basic services to show up.
When the system makes it harder instead of easier, people fall through the cracks.
This isn’t just a policy tweak. This is the kind of change that puts kids at risk of losing early intervention, or people in wheelchairs missing critical rehab, or families burning out because therapy has vanished without warning.
If You're Feeling Stuck I’ve Got You
At Strong Foundation Support, I help people across Queensland understand, use, and make the most of their NDIS plans. That includes:
Reviewing your current supports and gaps
Problem-solving around access and travel
Preparing for plan reviews or variations
Navigating the system even if you’re feeling overwhelmed or left behind
Want to learn more or get help with your NDIS plan? Contact us here. We’re here to help you make the most of what you have.
Final Thoughts
The NDIA may be trying to fix a budget issue but in doing so, they may have broken something much more important: the relationship between trust, access, and dignity in remote disability support.
Let’s not pretend this is just a business decision.
Let’s call it what it isa major risk to participant outcomes in rural Australia.
And unless we speak up, adjust, and support each other more people will be left without the care they need.
