Stage 02
From the first email to the first payment
What the sources actually establish about the order of the work — including the one thing most first-timers get backwards, and the deadlines that decide whether delivered work gets paid.
Start here
Start with what is not required
The single most useful correction on this page is a negative one, so it goes first.
Sourced
"You aren't required to create a written service agreement, in most cases. We recommend creating one every time you start working with a new provider. Written service agreements are only mandatory for specialist disability accommodation (SDA) supports."1
1. What is a service agreement — National Disability Insurance Scheme. ndis.gov.au
Read that carefully, because it cuts both ways. A written agreement is recommended, not required, for the supports an occupational therapy practice typically delivers. It is mandatory only for specialist disability accommodation. So an agreement is something you choose to do well because it protects both parties — not a compliance box that someone will fail you on.
From practice, not the guidance
Knowing an agreement is recommended rather than required tends to change how people write one. A document produced to satisfy an imagined auditor gets padded and generic. A document produced because both parties want the same understanding of what is being delivered, what it costs, and what happens when a session is missed gets specific — and the specific one is the one that helps when something is disputed later.
Step 00
Enquiry
The enquiry conversation is where the management type gets established, and that single fact determines the whole rest of the path: whether you may take the participant at all, who will pay you, and how you claim.
Sourced
One obligation lands at this stage rather than later: providers must "tell participants the price of NDIS supports before delivering them".2
2. What are the responsibilities of a provider. ndis.gov.au
From practice, not the guidance
The enquiry conversation tends to carry more weight than its length suggests. It is where the scope of the work gets set, out loud, before anything is written down — and anything you do not raise here is something you will be raising later from a weaker position. Report writing is the usual example: easy not to mention while you are talking about sessions, and awkward to introduce once a rhythm has started.
Step 01
Service agreement
Not required, as above — but recommended, and the guidance is specific about what a good one covers.
Sourced
A service agreement covers: what supports are provided, and how, when and where; the cost — price, materials, travel, other fees, GST, and "how your provider will be paid (by you, through direct claims on NDIA-managed plans or by a plan manager)"; responsibilities, including a cancellation policy and the rules each party follows; what happens if there is a disagreement; and further considerations — format and language, how long it runs, when it is reviewed, how changes are managed, and how to end it.3
3. What is a service agreement. ndis.gov.au
The cancellation policy is the item first-timers under-use. It is named in the guidance as something an agreement covers, which means an agreement silent on it has left a foreseeable event unaddressed.
Step 02
Delivery
Sourced
Providers must "request payment only after an NDIS support has been delivered".4
4. What are the responsibilities of a provider. ndis.gov.au
That is the actual ordering rule the sources state: delivery comes before the claim. It is not the same as the stronger claim — sometimes repeated informally — that funding must be set aside before you are permitted to deliver. The sources gathered here do not say that.
Step 03
The claim
How you claim depends entirely on the management type, and the three routes are set out on their own page. What is common to all of them is the information a claim carries.
Sourced
A claim requires:5
- participant name
- participant reference number or NDIS number
- dates of support
- support item reference number
- support item price
5. Guide to getting paid. ndis.gov.au
Three kinds of participant sets out which route applies to whom.
Step 04
Deadlines
This is where delivered work is most often lost, so the figures here are quoted exactly.
Sourced
"You need to submit payment requests within 2 years after an NDIS support has been delivered."6
For NDIA-managed participants there is a tighter, separate deadline: "You need to submit a payment request within 90 days from the end of a service booking."6
Claims submitted more than 6 months after a service was delivered may be held for review, and "the review can take up to 28 days". Where a claim is queried, "You'll have at least 14 business days to provide this information."6
6. Guide to getting paid. ndis.gov.au
Note what the 90-day deadline is measured from: the end of the service booking, not the date of the session. That is the detail that makes it easy to miss.
Step 05
Payment
Sourced
Valid claims from providers recorded as a my provider "are usually paid within 2 to 3 business days". Payment takes "about 10 business days if you are not recorded as a my provider, or if we need to check your payment claim is accurate".7
7. Guide to getting paid. ndis.gov.au
From practice, not the guidance
Because the paths differ, the rhythm of getting paid differs too, and a practice carrying participants of more than one kind is really running more than one administrative routine at once. That is worth noticing early — not because any one path is harder, but because the mental cost is in the switching rather than in the work.
One page
The one-pager
Your first scheme participant: the setup and the sequence.
The same material as this site, compressed onto one sheet you can keep beside the desk while you set the first one up — what has to exist first, the order the work runs in, and the deadlines that bite. Same sources, cited as footnotes.
- What has to exist before the first support
- The sequence, and the deadlines that bite
- Where the software helps, and where it does not
We email it. Leave your details and it comes to you — no account, no login.