My NDIS Plan No Longer Meets My Needs. What Can I Do?
An NDIS plan is based on your needs and circumstances at a particular point in time. But those needs can change.
Your condition might change. Your informal supports may no longer be available. Your living situation might change. Or you may have received a new plan and believe the decision does not properly reflect the evidence provided.
What you do next depends largely on where you are in your plan cycle and why your current plan no longer meets your needs.
First, work out what has changed
There is an important difference between:
your circumstances changing midway through an existing plan
receiving a new planning decision you disagree with
needing a relatively small change to your current plan
experiencing a significant change that means your existing plan no longer reflects your support needs.
The pathway you take, and the evidence you provide, will depend on the situation.
If your circumstances change midway through your plan.
Sometimes a participant's needs change well before their next scheduled reassessment.
For example, someone living with a degenerative condition such as multiple sclerosis or dementia may experience a functional decline that means the supports approved several months ago are no longer enough.
Changes in living arrangements, the loss of informal support from family or carers, or other significant changes can also affect a participant's support needs.
In these situations, start gathering evidence as early as possible.
Depending on the circumstances, the NDIA may consider a plan variation, which changes part of the current plan, or a plan reassessment, where the existing plan is replaced with a new one.
What evidence should you provide?
Good evidence should clearly explain:
what has changed
how it affects the person's day-to-day function
what additional or different support is now required
why the existing supports are no longer sufficient.
Relevant evidence may come from treating health and allied health professionals such as psychiatrists, psychologists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, social workers, exercise physiologists and physiotherapists.
It is not about collecting as many reports as possible. The evidence needs to be relevant to the change you are asking the NDIA to consider.
How do you tell the NDIA?
If your circumstances have changed significantly, you can notify the NDIA and provide supporting evidence about what has changed and how it has affected your disability support needs.
Currently, this can be done using the NDIA’s Change of Details or Change of Situation form, by calling the NDIA on 1800 800 110, visiting an NDIS office or through your my NDIS contact.
There is also an important change coming to who can request an unscheduled plan reassessment.
Under the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, only the participant, their plan nominee or guardian will be able to request an unscheduled plan reassessment. This means a Support Coordinator or other provider will no longer be able to make that request on the participant’s behalf.
Support Coordinators can still play an important role in helping the participant understand the process, gather relevant evidence and prepare the information needed to support their request.
The new restriction is due to commence seven days after the legislation receives Royal Assent. Until then, the current arrangements continue to apply.
Once the NDIA receives the request and supporting information, it will consider whether the participant meets the requirements for an unscheduled reassessment and what changes, if any, should be made to the plan.
What if you've just received a plan and believe the decision is wrong?
If you have recently received a planning decision and believe the wrong decision was made, or that important evidence was not properly considered, you may be able to request an internal review of a reviewable decision, often referred to as a Review of a Reviewable Decision or RORD.
An internal review generally needs to be requested within three months of receiving the decision in writing.
A strong review request should clearly explain:
what decision you expected
why you believe a different decision should have been made
what evidence supports your position
whether there is any new evidence to consider.
Simply saying "the participant needs more support" is usually not enough.
The evidence needs to show why the requested support meets the relevant NDIS funding criteria.
Understanding the "reasonable and necessary" criteria
For current old-framework NDIS plans, section 34 of the NDIS Act sets out the requirements for reasonable and necessary supports.
In practical terms, the requested support needs to:
Address a disability-related need
Support the participant's goals and aspirations
Support social and economic participation
Represent value for money
Be effective and beneficial, having regard to current good practice
Take into account what can reasonably be provided by family, carers and informal supports
Meet the requirements of an NDIS support
The NDIA also considers whether the support relates to the participant's disability, is an ordinary day-to-day living cost, should be provided by another government or mainstream service, or falls outside the current NDIS support rules.
Build your argument around the criteria
One of the biggest mistakes we see is evidence that describes a person's difficulties but does not clearly connect those difficulties to the support being requested.
For a review, we would generally want to establish a clear line between:
Disability-related need → participant goals → social and economic participation → effective and beneficial support → value for money → informal supports → NDIS versus mainstream responsibility.
Rather than simply stating:
"The participant requires additional physiotherapy."
The evidence should explain what disability-related need the physiotherapy addresses, what has changed, its expected benefit, how it relates to the participant's goals and why the recommended level of support is appropriate.
Essentially, you want the evidence to address each relevant funding criterion, rather than relying on a general statement that the support is needed.
Evidence matters, but relevance matters more
A large amount of evidence does not automatically make a strong submission.
If circumstances have changed, the evidence needs to demonstrate that change. If a planning decision is being challenged, it should respond to the reasons for that decision and the relevant funding criteria.
Preparing early and making sure the evidence directly addresses the issue can make a significant difference.
A note on upcoming NDIS planning changes
New framework planning is expected to begin rolling out from 1 April 2027. Until then, current planning arrangements remain in place, so participants should be aware that some processes may change as the new framework is introduced.
You don't have to navigate this alone
Working out whether you need a change of situation, plan variation, plan reassessment or review of a decision can be difficult, particularly when you are already dealing with a significant change in circumstances.
A good Support Coordinator can help you understand the process, identify gaps in the evidence, coordinate with treating professionals and make sure the information being submitted clearly reflects your current support needs.
At Newcastle Social Workers, our focus is on independent Support Coordination and helping participants understand the system, their options and the evidence they may need to move forward.
If your current NDIS plan no longer reflects your needs and you are unsure what to do next, get in touch with our team.
