NDIS therapy prices held or cut for 2026-27: a cash flow plan for allied health clinics

Three months into the 2026-27 financial year, plenty of allied health clinic owners are noticing the same thing. The diary is full. The NDIS claims are going through. Yet the bank balance at the end of each month is a little lower than it was this time last year.

The reason is mostly arithmetic. On 1 July 2026, the NDIS held the maximum prices for several of the most common therapy supports, cut a few others, and left clinics to absorb a year of cost increases. This guide sets out what changed, how to measure what it means for your clinic, and the practical steps that protect cash flow while you decide what to do next.

What actually changed for therapy on 1 July 2026?

The NDIA’s 2026-27 Annual Pricing Review looked at five areas, including therapy supports. Its recommendations flowed into a renamed document: the old Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits is now the NDIS Pricing Schedule, published alongside the Support Catalogue.

For therapy, the 2026-27 maximum hourly prices as published in the schedule are:

Discipline	2026-27 maximum (per hour)	Direction
Psychology	$252.99	Increased
Occupational therapy	$193.99	Held
Speech pathology	$193.99	Held
Podiatry	$188.99	Held
Physiotherapy	$183.99	Held
Dietetics	$178.99	Reduced
Exercise physiology	$161.99	Reduced

The review’s reasoning, as reported by plan managers and advisers who summarised it, was that dietetics and exercise physiology prices sat above comparable Medicare and private market prices. The other held disciplines simply got no indexation.

The schedule also introduced invoice suffixes that separate out cancellations, non-face-to-face work, provider travel, NDIA-requested reports and telehealth. Those don’t change what you can charge, but they make it much easier for the NDIA and plan managers to see how each hour was used.

Always check the current Pricing Schedule and Support Catalogue on the NDIS pricing updates page for the exact line items you claim. Prices can differ for remote and very remote areas.

Why is a “held” price really a cut?

Because costs didn’t hold. The Fair Work Commission’s 2026 Annual Wage Review increased modern award rates by 4.75% from 1 July 2026, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman. Even where your therapists are paid above award, the market usually moves with it. Then add:

• the Superannuation Guarantee at 12%, now paid on payday under Payday Super;
• annual rent reviews on your clinic lease;
• professional indemnity and other insurance renewals;
• practice software, which is often priced per practitioner.

If the most you can bill for an hour stays flat while the cost of delivering that hour rises by several per cent, the margin on every NDIS session shrinks. For a clinic where NDIS participants are half the caseload, that adds up quickly.

How do I work out what it means for my clinic?

Start with one number: cost per billable hour, by discipline. It’s simple to calculate and it tells you more than any profit-and-loss summary.

1. Add up the full cost of each discipline for a month. Wages or contractor payments, super, leave loading, a share of rent, admin and reception wages, software, insurance, consumables.
2. Count billable hours delivered, not rostered. Exclude cancellations you couldn’t claim, unbillable admin and travel you couldn’t recover.
3. Divide the cost by the billable hours. That’s what each hour actually costs you.
4. Compare it with what you actually receive per hour for NDIS, private, Medicare and other funded work.

The gap between the second and fourth step is where most clinics find the problem. A therapist who is “fully booked” may only deliver 24 to 28 billable hours a week once reports, notes, team meetings and short-notice cancellations are counted.

Where does the margin leak in an NDIS caseload?

In our experience talking with clinic owners, the leaks are rarely dramatic. They’re small and constant.

• Non-face-to-face time that isn’t claimed. Report writing, programme design and phone calls with support coordinators can be claimable when they’re in the participant’s service agreement and plan. Many clinics under-claim them.
• Travel. Since 1 July 2025, provider travel for therapy is claimable at 50% of the hourly rate, within limits. Long drives between short home visits can wipe out the margin on the visit itself.
• Cancellations. The short notice cancellation rules have specific conditions. If your intake paperwork and service agreements don’t reflect them, you’ll write off hours you could have claimed.
• Slow or rejected claims. Claims sent with the wrong line item, a lapsed service booking or an expired plan sit unpaid while staff are still paid on time.
• Plan manager payment times. Plan-managed participants are paid by their plan manager, not the NDIA directly, and each plan manager has its own timetable.

Our page on NDIS payment delays covers the claiming side in more detail, and the claims gap calculator shows how much cash is tied up in claims at any one time.

If the squeeze is already showing up in your bank account, you can check what finance options your clinic has in about a minute, with no credit check.

What can clinics actually do about it?

There’s no single answer, but most practical plans combine some of the following.

Tighten the claiming. Fix the leaks above before changing anything else. A weekly claims check and a monthly report on rejected claims cost very little and often recover more than you’d expect.

Review your mix. NDIS work is steady and well referred, which has real value. But if your cost per billable hour in a discipline now sits close to the NDIS price, it may be worth growing your private, Medicare, insurer or workers compensation caseload alongside it rather than replacing it.

Look at how therapists spend their week. Group sessions where clinically appropriate, better report templates, allied health assistants for suitable tasks, and grouping home visits by suburb can all lift billable hours without anyone working longer.

Plan staffing costs before they arrive. Pay rises, new graduates and parental leave all land on known dates. Our guide to care workforce wage costs walks through planning for them.

Build a buffer. A clinic running on thin margins has less room to absorb a late plan manager payment, a therapist leaving or a quiet school holiday period. A cash reserve, or a facility you only draw on when needed, keeps payroll safe while you make changes.

An illustrative example

Illustrative only. This describes no real clinic.

A paediatric therapy clinic in regional Victoria employs four occupational therapists and two speech pathologists. About 70% of its sessions are NDIS-funded, mostly plan-managed.

After 1 July 2026, its OT and speech prices stayed the same while wages rose. The owner works through the cost-per-billable-hour exercise and finds two things. Therapists are delivering about 25 billable hours a week, not the 30 she assumed. And report-writing time agreed in service agreements is often not being claimed.

She makes three changes. Reception now runs a weekly claims check. Service agreements are updated so non-face-to-face work is clearly set out and claimed. And she begins taking school-holiday private clients again to smooth out the quieter weeks.

Those changes take a couple of months to show up in the bank account. To cover payroll in the meantime, especially in weeks when two large plan managers pay late, she arranges a modest line of credit sized on the clinic’s turnover. She draws on it twice in the first quarter and repays it as the claims come in.

How do lenders look at allied health clinics right now?

Lenders who understand the sector see NDIS, Medicare and insurer income as reliable, but they look closely at trend and timing. They’ll want to see:

• business bank statements showing regular claim income and how it’s trending;
• the mix of funding sources, and how dependent the clinic is on any one of them;
• debtors, including plan managers and insurers that pay slowly;
• any ATO or super arrears;
• for larger amounts, whether property is available as security.

The key point is timing. A clinic whose statements still show steady income and a clean ATO account has more options than one that waits until wages are bouncing. Our page on allied health finance explains the options, from unsecured working capital sized on turnover to property-secured loans for bigger projects. If you also deliver support work, see NDIS provider finance.

A checklist for the rest of 2026-27

• Download the current Pricing Schedule and Support Catalogue and confirm every line item you claim
• Calculate cost per billable hour for each discipline
• Review service agreements for non-face-to-face work, reports, travel and cancellations
• Set up a weekly claims check and a monthly rejected-claims report
• List your plan managers and how long each one takes to pay
• Map known cost increases: wages, rent review, insurance renewals
• Decide on your NDIS, private and other funded mix for next year
• Put a buffer or facility in place before you need it
• Watch for the 2027-28 Annual Pricing Review, which the NDIA consults on during the year

Protecting the clinic while the prices stand still

You look after participants and families every day. A frozen price isn’t a reason to stop, but it is a reason to know your numbers and give the business some breathing room while you adjust.

That’s the part we help with. Many allied health owners come to us at exactly this point: the work is good, the claims are coming in, but the timing between paying therapists and receiving NDIS income has become tight. We’ll look at your turnover, your funding mix and what you need the money for, then match you with an option that fits.

Telling us about your clinic takes about 60 seconds, and there’s no credit check when you first enquire. Your details stay with us. They aren’t passed around a line of lenders, so you won’t be fielding calls between sessions. A real person who understands therapy practices reads your enquiry and calls you. Please fill the form in accurately, including your turnover, how much you need and what it’s for, so we can find the right option on the first call.

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