The NDIS or the National Disability Insurance Scheme is Australia’s first national Scheme for people with disability. It provides funding directly to individuals with permanent and significant disability. The funding is to be utilised for all reasonable and necessary supports.

NDIS was introduced in July 2013, before that disability services in Australia had been a lottery system. The funding you received depended on how, when and where you acquired your disability, as well as where you lived. So, after they held an inquiry, the Federal Government agreed that people with a disability deserved a fairer system.

Eligibility for the NDIS depends on a few different things such as:

Location: You need to have been living in an area where the scheme is already rolled out

Age: You need to be under 65 years at the time of your application

Residency: You need to be an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or a New Zealand citizen who holds a Protected Special Category Visa

Disability: You must have a permanent disability that significantly affects how you can communicate, move, care for yourself, or manage your life.

Early Intervention: You might be eligible if early intervention would substantially improve your functioning, or delay or decrease a decline in functioning, for you or your child.

The NDIS participant portal is called myplace. It is a secure website for participants or their nominee to view their NDIS plan, request payments and manage services with providers. If you are self-managing your NDIS plan, then you can create and view payment requests, set up and manage booking services and upload documents.

In order to be considered reasonable and necessary, a support or service must be:

• Must be related to a participant’s disability
• Must not include day-to-day living costs such as groceries
• Should represent value for money
• Must be likely to be effective and work for the participant
• Should take into account support given to you by other government services, your family, carers, networks and the community.

• Self-managed: The NDIA provides you with funding to you can organize and access the supports you
  need to achieve your short-term and long-term goals.
• Plan-managed:  Plan Manager’s are funded by the NDIS, they’ll pay providers on your behalf, helping you
  to keep track of funds and taking care of the financial reporting.
• NDIA-managed: The NDIA pays your providers on your behalf.