Reasonable & Necessary – What does it mean?

Reasonable and Necessary are two words that you will become very familiar with as an NDIS participant.

Reasonable means to be fair and sensible.

Necessary means something you need to have because of your disability.

The NDIS will fund supports that are reasonable and necessary in a participants plan. This means that they will fund services or supports that are fair and sensible and are needed because of your disability.

It is important that both a participant and their plan manager understand what reasonable and necessary means so that funding within your NDIS plan can be used to gain the greatest benefit.

The NDIS further breaks down ‘reasonable and necessary’ into 6 criteria. If you can justify the support or service you require by answering the following questions, then you should not have an issue using funding in your NDIS plan to gain your desired service or support.

  1. Will the support assist the participant to pursue the goals in their plan?
    • Does it align to the goals in your NDIS plan?
  1. Will the support assist the participant to undertake activities to facilitate their social and economic participation?
    • Will it allow you to access the community socially or by finding employment?
  1. Does the support represent value for money?
    • The costs are reasonable for both the benefits being achieved and alternative therapies available.
  1. Is the support considered good practice and is it likely to be of benefit to the participant?
    • Is there evidence available that will suggest that this support will work?
  1. Has consideration been given to what is reasonable for parents, carers, informal networks and the community to provide?
    • It is reasonable to expect that a 9-year-old child would not be responsible for cleaning a house. Therefore, it would not be reasonable to expect NDIS to funding cleaning services in a child’s plan.
  1. Is the support most appropriately funded through the NDIS?
    • If it is better funded through another government department such as health, education, justice or transport, then chances are it cannot be funded under the NDIS.

If you are still unsure if a service or support can be funded through the NDIS, get in contact with us and we can let you know.

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