Preparing for an NDIS Plan Reassessment: What to Have Ready

Published by SESI Care Services · Updated September 2026 · 4-minute summary

Quick answer: What used to be called a plan review is now a plan reassessment, and it is one of three things that can happen when your plan reaches its reassessment date. Your my NDIS contact should get in touch 2 to 3 months beforehand for a check-in, after which the NDIA can reassess your plan (a new plan), vary it (a change inside the plan you have), or continue it. Start preparing about six months out. What you need is not a longer wish list: it is a record of how your support needs run across a bad week, the hours you were funded for against the hours you received, and a recent report describing function rather than diagnosis. Your funding does not stop while a reassessment runs, and if you disagree with the outcome you have 3 months to ask for an internal review, then 28 days to go to the Administrative Review Tribunal.

Key takeaways

• The word changed, and it matters. “Plan review” now means disputing a decision. The scheduled conversation about your next plan is a plan reassessment.
• A reassessment is not your only option. A plan variation handles urgent, minor or short-term changes without replacing your plan.
• Since 27 August 2026, only you, your plan nominee or your child representative can request an unscheduled reassessment, on the NDIA’s approved form, with evidence attached. The NDIA then has 90 days to decide, and silence past that counts as a refusal you can have reviewed.
• Funding periods changed how underspend reads. An unspent budget no longer simply means you did not need the money, so be ready to say why.
• Evidence about function beats evidence about diagnosis. The NDIA is deciding what your daily life requires, not confirming what you have.
• Most people under-report. They describe their best day because it is the easy one to talk about. Describe the range, including how often the bad end happens.

Reassessment, variation, or continuation

Choosing the wrong one is the most common avoidable delay.

	What it is	When it fits
Plan reassessment	A new plan with a new end date	Your needs have changed significantly and ongoingly, or your scheduled date has arrived
Plan variation	A change inside the plan you have	Urgent, minor or short-term: a crisis, a one-off piece of assistive technology, a quote higher than the funded amount
Plan continuation	Your existing plan carries on	Nothing much has changed and the plan is working

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s plain English summary of the variation and reassessment rules sets out the tests in full. If your funded hours are right but you cannot get them delivered, neither is your first move: that is a provider conversation, covered in our guide to personal care hours in your NDIS plan.

What triggers a reassessment, and how much notice you get

Scheduled. Every plan has a reassessment date, and your my NDIS contact should call around 2 to 3 months beforehand for a check-in about your goals, how you have used your supports, and what is changing. Your preparation should already be done by then.

Unscheduled, requested by you. You can ask at any time if something has changed significantly. Since changes that took effect on 27 August 2026:

• Only you, your plan nominee or your child representative can lodge it. A provider, coordinator or family member cannot lodge on your behalf, though they can help you write it.
• It must be on the NDIA’s plan reassessment request form, with evidence attached.
• You must show a significant and ongoing change in one of four things: your functional capacity, your living arrangements, your education or work arrangements, or your informal supports (unpaid help from family and friends).
• The NDIA then has 90 days to decide whether to reassess, vary, or do nothing.

Sources differ on one word: the Department’s fact sheet on the Bill required an “unanticipated” change in living, education, work or informal support arrangements, while the NDIA’s current guidance asks only for a significant and ongoing change. Check the current form before you write. Our post on what the 2026 NDIS legislation actually changed works through the sections.

Your funding while a reassessment is pending

Your supports do not stop. If you reach your plan’s end date first, your current plan is automatically extended and funding continues at the same amounts until the reassessment is complete, and if you asked for an unscheduled reassessment you keep using your current plan while the NDIA decides. An extension does not give you more money, though, so if you asked because you are running out, a variation may be the faster path.

The 2026 funding period rules change how underspend reads

Since 19 May 2025, new and reassessed plans generally use three-month funding periods. Your total funding does not change, but you can only access part of it at a time. Within a plan, unspent funds roll over into the next funding period. Spend a period’s allocation early and you cannot draw ahead: you wait for the next period. Three consequences at reassessment:

1. An underspend is now ambiguous. It might mean you needed less, or that the money was not there in the month you needed it, no worker could be found, or you were in hospital. The NDIA cannot read that off a number. You can.
2. Hitting the wall early is itself information. Exhausting a funding period in month two, three periods running, says something about whether the allocation matched the need. Say so, with dates.
3. Late claims distort the picture. From December 2026, providers must claim within 90 days of delivering a support, and an unsubmitted claim makes your budget look healthier than your year was.

Two further changes are worth planning around. From 1 October 2026, budgets for social, civic and community participation and for capacity building daily activities are being progressively reset as plans are reassessed or renewed. From 1 February 2027, plan continuations become “plan renewals” and unspent funds will not carry over. If part of your community participation budget has sat unused because transport never got organised, raise it now rather than next time. None of this is a reason to spend money you do not need. It is a reason to notice early where funded support is not turning into delivered support.

What evidence the NDIA actually weighs

Funding decisions are made against the reasonable and necessary criteria: a support must relate to your disability, help you pursue your goals and take part in work, study and community life, be value for money and likely to be effective, account for what family and friends reasonably provide, and not be something another system should fund. Read that backwards and it tells you what your evidence must do.

What carries weight	What does not
How long a task takes on a bad day, and how often bad days happen	A diagnosis on its own
Function across mobility, communication, social interaction, self care, self management and learning	“I would like more hours” with no reason given
What informal supports absorb, and for how long	A report older than the change it describes
The specific risk if a support is not funded	Wording that could describe anyone with your condition

The NDIA’s guidance on writing plan reassessment reports is aimed at allied health providers, but it is the clearest public statement of what the agency wants: what support was delivered and how often, your functional baseline at the start of the plan, what changed, what got in the way, the risks, and what is recommended next with a reason for each recommendation. Ask for those by name. A three-line letter saying “this participant continues to require support” carries almost no weight.

What to write down yourself

The most useful document is the one nobody else can produce for you. Keep a plain log for two to four weeks, deliberately including a bad week. Each day, note what you needed help with, how long it took, what did not get done, what a family member or friend covered, and anything that went wrong. Record dates for falls, seizures, hospital visits, sensory shutdowns or days you could not leave the house.

Then write one page covering:

• What has changed since your last plan, and when
• What is working, so it does not get cut by accident
• What you stopped doing because the support was not there
• What your informal supports carry, and whether that can continue
• Your goals, stated as things you want to do rather than services you want funded

On the worst-day problem. Most people under-report, and not deliberately. They describe their best day because it is the easy one to talk about, and because describing the worst day feels like complaining. If a planner asks “can you shower yourself?” and the true answer is “yes, about two days in seven, and the other five I cannot”, then “yes” is not honest. Describe the range and the frequency. That is not exaggeration, it is the accurate picture, and it is the one the funding has to cover. The reverse holds too: an account that does not match your reports undermines the true parts as well.

What to ask your providers for, and when

When	What to do
6 months out	Start your log. Tell providers your reassessment date so reports are booked, not rushed.
4 months out	Request written reports covering function, progress, barriers, risks and recommendations.
3 months out	Ask each provider for hours delivered against hours funded, and shifts they could not fill.
2 to 3 months out	Your my NDIS contact calls. Have your one-pager, log and reports in one place.
Afterwards	Check the new plan against what you asked for, line by line, in the first week.

That hours-delivered figure is worth chasing: if you were funded for 15 hours a week of assistance with personal activities and received 11, the gap explains an underspend without you having to argue about it. If all this feels like a second job, that is what support coordination is for. A coordinator can chase reports, assemble the evidence and sit with you in the conversation, though they cannot lodge the request itself.

If you disagree with the outcome

Decisions to reassess or not, decisions to vary or not, and the resulting plan are all reviewable.

1. Ask for an internal review within 3 months of receiving the decision in writing. A different NDIA staff member looks again. Submit new evidence rather than repeating the old evidence louder.
2. Then the Administrative Review Tribunal, which replaced the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on 14 October 2024. You have 28 days from the internal review decision to apply, and the ART can extend that.
3. Get free help. The NDIS Appeals Program funds independent advocates and, in some cases, representation at the tribunal. NDIS funding cannot pay for legal representation there, but it can pay for disability supports you need to take part.

A deemed refusal counts as a decision: if 90 days passed with no answer, that silence can be reviewed rather than re-lodged.

Frequently asked questions

Talk to SESI

If your reassessment date is coming up and you want help pulling the evidence together, tell us where you are up to.

Tell us what’s going on: sesi.com.au/referral · Call: 1800 017 374

This guide is general information based on National Disability Insurance Agency and Department of Health, Disability and Ageing guidance current at September 2026. SESI delivers in-person supports across Victoria, including Narre Warren, and support coordination by phone and video Australia-wide. Several rules described here have further start dates in 2026 and 2027, so check the current position before acting. This is not advice about your individual plan. For plan decisions, contact the NDIA on 1800 800 110.