Support Coordination Billing & Service Scope Policy
Steady Guide Independent Support Coordination | Published September 2026 | Compliant with NDIS Practice Standards & NDIS Code of Conduct
At a Glance & Policy Summary
Central Takeaway: Steady Guide maintains absolute billing transparency, specifying exactly which capacity-building coordination activities are claimable under NDIS plan budgets and establishing clear boundaries on non-billable or out-of-scope services.
- Transparent Billing Framework: We only bill for direct, participant-approved Support Coordination activities under NDIS Line Item 07_002_0106_8_3.
- Choice & Control Safeguards: We never make decisions on behalf of participants, manage personal finances, or replace informal support networks.
- Clear Sector Boundaries: We respect mainstream service responsibilities, ensuring NDIS funding is not used for mainstream health, housing, or education duties.
- Zero Commission & Non-Cross-Promotion: We make educational books and resources free, but they are strictly separate to our support coordination services.
📋 Document Governance & Metadata Control
| Document Reference: | SG-SC-POL-2026-v2.0 |
| Effective / Update Date: | 30 September 2026 |
| Approval Authority: | Jenny Mathers, Director & Privacy Officer |
| Registration Group: | Registration Group 0106 (Life Stage Transitions) |
| Exhaustive Line Item Scope: | 07_002_0106_8_3 |
1. Purpose & Regulatory Context
Steady Guide is committed to delivering ethical, person-centred, and fully transparent Support Coordination across regional Queensland, including Toowoomba, Chinchilla, Miles, and Tara. As an independent provider operating under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Quality and Safeguards Commission rules, we believe that participants, nominees, and plan managers deserve complete clarity regarding how funding is utilised.
This policy outlines the precise operational boundaries of our Support Coordination services. It explicitly details the capacity-building activities that Steady Guide will bill for under a participant’s NDIS plan, alongside the specific functions and non-coordination tasks that we strictly will not bill for.
By establishing these explicit billing parameters in advance, we protect participant choice and control, uphold the NDIS Code of Conduct, and ensure complete compliance with the NDIS Practice Standards and Australian Consumer Law.
💡 Jenny’s Governance Note: Support Coordination is a capacity-building support designed to empower you to navigate the NDIS independently over time. We believe in open, upfront communication about every dollar billed to your plan.
2. What Steady Guide WILL Bill For and WILL do
Steady Guide bills strictly for legitimate Support Coordination activities as defined under the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits. These activities focus on building participant capability, establishing service arrangements, and maintaining plan stability:
- Connect participants with supports: Researching, identifying, and linking participants with funded allied health professionals, community activities, and mainstream service providers tailored to their individual goals.
- Coordinate arrangements across services: Facilitating collaborative communication between multiple service providers, scheduling multi-disciplinary case conferences, and establishing clear Service Agreements to ensure seamless support delivery.
- Support informed decision-making: Presenting participants with clear, unbiased information regarding provider options (enforcing the Three Provider Rule) so individuals can exercise true choice and control over their supports.
- Help participants understand and implement their plans: Translating dense NDIS plan budgets, funding categories, and Section 10 Support Lists into plain English so participants understand how their funding can be used effectively.
- Strengthen navigation skills and confidence: Coaching participants and family carers to build the self-advocacy skills needed to communicate directly with providers, manage service issues, and prepare for plan reassessments.
- Coach and build self-advocacy skills: We coach our participants to speak up about their support needs and to communicate directly with their support providers. If this is difficult for you, we will scaffold this and help you to learn these skills at your own pace.
- Identify emerging risks: Monitoring service delivery, tracking plan expenditure, and proactively identifying potential support gaps, crisis triggers, or service breakdowns before they impact participant well-being.
- Support service transitions: Assisting participants through significant life changes, such as moving into new housing arrangements, transitioning between school and employment, or adjusting to major health changes.
- Strengthen participant support networks: Assisting participants to build resilient, long-term informal support networks among family, friends, peer groups, and local regional community circles.
- Case noting and NDIA requested reporting: Under the NDIS Pricing Arrangements, support coordination tasks include NDIA requested reporting. Steady Guide also writes accurate case notes to document your support needs, so that we can justify your supports to the NDIA, and to ensure that your support coordination services are value-for-money and efficient. Reporting and case noting are both non-face-to-face activities, allowable under the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and under our standard service agreement. These are billed only for the time it took to complete these tasks.
3. What Steady Guide WILL NOT Bill For and WILL NOT do
To maintain role clarity, legal compliance, and ethical separation, Steady Guide strictly enforces boundaries on what we do not bill for. The following functions fall outside the scope of Support Coordination and will never be billed to a participant’s NDIS plan:
- Make decisions on behalf of participants: We do not act as a legal decision-maker, guardian, or nominee. All decisions remain strictly with the participant or their formally appointed legal guardian.
- Replace supported decision-making arrangements: We do not bypass or replace a participant’s established family, advocate, or informal decision-making structures.
- Provide individual advocacy services: Support Coordination is not formal individual disability advocacy. Where legal or independent advocacy is required, we refer participants to funded, independent advocacy agencies.
- Determine NDIS eligibility: We do not assess or determine scheme access eligibility under Section 24 or Section 25. That statutory authority rests solely with the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).
- Manage participant personal finances: We do not handle participant bank accounts, disburse cash, or act as a Registered Plan Management provider.
- Provide crisis response services: Support Coordination is an active planning support, not an acute emergency or crisis intervention service. In acute health, mental health, or safety emergencies, emergency services (000) or acute crisis teams must be contacted.
- Undertake regulatory or investigative functions: We do not act as an investigative body, quality auditor, or regulatory enforcement agent for government departments.
- Replace responsibilities held by health, housing, justice or education: We do not perform tasks that are the statutory responsibility of mainstream service systems (such as medical treatment, public housing allocation, legal defense, or school curriculum delivery).
- Routinely provide other NDIS-funded supports: To prevent conflicts of interest and maintain provider independence, we do not deliver direct support work, therapy services, or core support hours to participants receiving our Support Coordination.
- Administrative functions: We do not bill for functions that include onboarding participants and service agreement creation, marketing, business-related functions such as invoicing, publishing material whether in hard copy or online formats, managing HR functions, carrying out tasks that are not directly related to service provision, or tasks that have been requested by someone other than the participant or authorised representative.
- Provider travel: Steady Guide does not charge for provider travel. This is because provider travel is rarely funded for support coordination in NDIS plans. To charge provider travel for support coordination would very quickly exhaust the funding meant for service provision. We claim travel expenses through our tax instead. Having said this, we reserve the right to charge provider travel if we travel to a scheduled appointment and find that you are not present for the appointment.
4. Billing Practices & Financial Governance
To guarantee complete financial integrity, Steady Guide adheres to strict billing protocols:
- NDIS Line Item Standard: All claimable support coordination is billed under NDIS Line Item
07_002_0106_8_3(Support Coordination) at the exact cap set by the current NDIS Pricing Arrangements. - Time Tracking & Invoicing: Time spent on eligible coordination tasks is tracked accurately in 15-minute increments. This means a task that involved multiple phone calls, case noting, research and organisation that took 46 minutes in total to complete will be billed to the closest 15 minute increment. In this case, this task would be billed for 45 minutes). Steady Guide bundles tasks together, so that work completed can be billed together to the closest 15 minute increment. In a scenario where a task took only 6 minutes to complete, this task will be bundled with another task. This means Steady Guide can not claim 15 minutes work for 6 minutes work that was actually completed. Steady Guide bills weekly with clear, itemised descriptions of work completed. Steady Guide has 21 day billing terms, but always appreciates prompt payment.
- Non-Billable Overhead: General business administrative tasks, internal accounting, staff training, marketing, and preliminary intake inquiries prior to Service Agreement execution are never billed to participants.