As the National Disability Insurance Agency releases its latest Annual Pricing Review, a long-simmering issue in the sector is back in focus: the price of support coordination, which has been frozen since 2019-20. For participants who rely on support coordinators to help them navigate an increasingly complex scheme, the debate over pricing has real implications.
What’s Happening
The NDIA has released its Annual Pricing Review (APR) Report, which provides guidance on what the Agency considers appropriate NDIS prices for the 2026-27 financial year. The pricing rules, formally called the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits (PAPL), set the maximum amounts registered providers can charge for different supports, and are typically updated to take effect from 1 July each year.
During the consultation process for this year’s review, one issue drew significant feedback from providers: the freeze on support coordination prices, which have not increased since the 2019-20 financial year.
Why the Freeze Matters
Support coordination is the funded support that helps participants understand their plans and connect with the right providers. With the NDIS undergoing the most significant reforms in its history, including new framework planning, mandatory registration, and changes to how plans are managed, the role of support coordinators in helping participants make sense of it all has arguably never been more important.
Yet providers argue that holding prices flat for six years, while wages, insurance, and operating costs have all risen substantially, has placed the sustainability of quality support coordination under real pressure. Support worker wages in particular have climbed, driven by increases to the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services (SCHADS) Award, with a further increase scheduled for 1 August 2026. When the price a provider can charge stays still while the cost of delivering the service rises, the math becomes difficult.
The Broader Pricing Picture
The pricing review covers far more than support coordination. This year’s report also touches on nursing rates, which received an increase, and considers issues like differentiated pricing for different types of providers and the structure of supports like Supported Independent Living. The Agency weighs how markets are functioning, how providers are responding to existing settings, and whether pricing continues to support participant outcomes and access to quality supports.
It’s a genuinely difficult balancing act. Set prices too low and providers may exit the market or cut corners, reducing participant choice and quality. Set them too high and the scheme’s sustainability, already under intense scrutiny, comes under further pressure. With around 770,000 participants and the scheme approaching $54 billion in annual cost, every pricing decision carries weight.
What It Means for Participants
For participants, the pricing of support coordination matters because it affects both the availability and the quality of the help they receive navigating the scheme. If quality providers find support coordination financially unviable, participants in some areas, particularly regional and remote ones, could find it harder to access good support coordination at all.
The pricing review process is also a reminder of how interconnected the scheme’s many moving parts are. Wages, pricing, registration, and plan management changes all influence one another, and all ultimately shape the experience of the people the scheme exists to serve.
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