Shared thoughts on why OT Private Hourly Rate may differ from NDIS Hourly Rate
This information has been collated from a post by Jodi Rolph on 11 June 2021 querying how
OT’s justify any difference in hourly rate between Private and NDIS clients, in response to
viewing posts NDIS participants or their carer’s voicing concerns that therapists are
overcharging NDIS recipients.
The following is a summary of comments by OT’s commenting on the post, in no particular
order. Feel free to use this information as you wish, if it helps in promoting your service.
Reasons NDIS Rate may be higher than Private Rates:
 NDIS clients are more complex, whereas Private clients often have one single or simple
injury/issue to address.
 Private Clients don’t have reasonable access to therapy funding, resulting in discounts
being offered
 NDIS rate is the standard rate, Private rate is discounted from the standard rate
 In order to offer a discount to Private clients, Therapists may need to charge full rate to
NDIS recipients to maintain a viable business
 NDIS Registration/Compliance Requirements are costly and time consuming processes
to navigate.
 The cost of becoming NDIS Registered is much higher in rural areas because
organisations have to pay the auditors flights, accommodation etc for the auditors to
attend onsite.
 NDIS is a paper/process/administration heavy funding program, much of which is nonbillable to NDIS Participants
 More than the required 20 hours of CPD/reading is necessary to keep up with NDIS
changes in policy/guidelines/requirements/safeguarding, resulting in updating and
implementing own business procedures to ensure compliance is met
 For mobile Therapists, not all NDIS Travel time to client appointments can be billed
 NDIS rate was developed and arrived at by external consultants who took into account
the complexity of Participants, the substantial training/supervision required of
therapists, the complexity of reporting formats (AT/CHM/SDA/SIL)
 Considerable time may be spent chasing payment for services by Participants (Plan/SelfManaged). Agency Managed Participants requires additional administration time.
 Occupational Therapists have been been undervalued and underpaid for a long time –
finally catching up.
 Physiotherapists, Psychologists are paid more, criticised less - ?perceived value?
 Every funding body charges different rates, usually based on the compliance load on the
provider.
 The amount of funding in Participant NDIS Plans is based on Therapy Hours that have
been deemed reasonable and necessary, at the current NDIS rates.
 Business overheads include – clinic rent, insurances, annual/sick leave, registration costs
(OT and NDIS), CPD/upskilling, non-billable tasks, training staff, software costs,
privacy/data security costs, superannuation, tax (GST/business tax/income tax)
 Rural OT’s have higher costs for business overheads, including offering higher salaries to
attract therapists to be employed, hence the rate up to $290/hour.