In order to access NDIS funding, you must download and complete the Access Request Form (ARF), and a Supporting Evidence Form (SEF) on the NDIS website. This may require you to work with their GP, allied health, or specialist medical professionals to prepare and provide the information required.
For the NDIA to determine whether you meet the disability or early intervention access requirements, you may need to provide evidence of your disability as part of your access request. This includes information on what your disability is, how long it will last, and how it impacts your life.
According to the NDIS your treating health professional can provide evidence by:
- Completing Part F of the Access Request Form; or
- Completing the NDIS Supporting Evidence Form; or
- Providing existing reports, assessments or letters that show the impact of your disability.
Completing the Support Evidence Form
If the NDIS require more information from you, they may request you to complete a Supporting Evidence Form. Your treating health professional can assist you in completing the Supporting Evidence Form.
You can download the Supporting Evidence Form from the NDIS website. These forms are best completed by a health professional who knows you and your disability. To assist you in speaking with your health professional about having this form completed, or having a report written to support your access request, we have put together some helpful tips and hints to assist you in providing sufficiently detailed information for NDIS to determine your eligibility to access NDIS funded support.
Supporting Evidence Helpful Tips PDF
Alternatively, if you have existing reports or assessments you can send them to the NDIS with your completed form. We would however recommend you review your reports against the Supporting Evidence Form, and indicate which criteria that report is related to.
Providing a Functional OT assessment to support an access request
A Functional Capacity Assessment (FCA) may be required as evidence to demonstrate the impact of your disability. We do not traditionally complete these for people trying to access the NDIS, but rather try to guide them as to what evidence they can gather from their existing professionals or write themselves to explain the impact of their disability. This is because an FCA is not essential and can be expensive for people who are yet to access the NDIS and have to fund it from their own pockets.
There are, however, circumstances where access to the NDIS is denied, or more evidence is sought by the NDIA, and in these instances, you may need to obtain an FCA.
We recently volunteered our time to complete a Functional Capacity Assessment for an applicant who was in an exceptional circumstance, with multiple barriers stopping them from accessing the NDIS. After months of struggling to access the NDIS, our client’s application was successfully accepted within 24 hours with the help of one of our clinicians.
To assist other clients in exceptional circumstances, Optimal Living Therapy will volunteer the time of each of our clinicians so that they can assist one client per year in completing their NDIS functional assessment free of charge.
This service is only available for those who have had difficulty getting their application accepted due to challenging circumstances (for example multiple denied attempts, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, extreme financial hardship, and unable to obtain assessments).
If you or someone you are supporting would like to be considered, you can submit an expression of interest, we will review every case fairly in terms of urgency and the availability of our team.
