What You Need to Know About Endorsing Providers
No fluff, no balderdash.
If you’ve just entered the NDIS as a participant for the first time, or if you’ve recently had your plan reassessed, you’re probably scratching your head confused about what all this chatter is about “endorsing” providers…so let’s break it down, nice and simple!
In October of 2023, the NDIS started rolling out a new system and changes to how participant plans are built and structured. These changes are broadly among the provider/participant community, referred to as ‘PACE’.
Some of these changes are intended to make consolidating communication and contact with between participants, providers and the NDIS easier and more efficient with greater oversight. One of these changes is the policy of “endorsing” providers.
This new policy only impacts some participants, based on how your plan funding is managed.
For humans new to the NDIS, there are 3 ways the money can managed (the actual transactions for goods and services), they are:
Agency-Managed
Plan Managed
Self Managed
Let’s break down to what you need to know, based on your plan’s funding type.
Agency Managed Participants
Every provider who works with you will need to be endorsed.
Plan Managed Participants
You only need to endorse your Plan Manager.
Self Managed Participants
Put your feet up and chill - endorsements aren’t needed!
So you might now be asking… how do you even do this “endorsement” thing?
We got you, boo.
Endorsing providers is much easier than the public was initially led to believe.
Let’s be real here and acknowledge that the education and communication from NDIS to participants and providers have caused a huge amount of misinformation to spread—including to LACs—for a long time, and it has contributed to significant stress and confusion for participants.
All that’s needed to endorse a provider is to notify the NDIS who your provider/s are - you’ll need to have some basic information about them, such as:
name of the organisation
their ABN
method of contacting them and;
if you have a key/primary contact in their organisation
Notifying the NDIS can be done in a few different ways - you can email the information to enquiries@ndis.gov.au, call them on 1800 800 110, or use the webchat feature on their website.
You can also provide the information to your Support Coordinator, or LAC (Local Area Coordinator).
We hope this blog post helps you understand and navigate NDIS with a little less stress - you can find more information from the NDIS about provider endorsements here.
Still a smidge-bit confused?
breathe - we’re here to help as best we can. You can drop us a line or enquire about our services here.