Cost-cutting on the NDIS must not come at the expense of safeguards or ignore that a patient’s condition can fluctuate, the college says.
The RACGP has renewed its call this week for GPs to be formally recognised as medical specialists as the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing prepares advice for government on changes to NDIS access.
While the college supported functional capacity as the key NDIS eligibility determinant, excluding GP input “wilfully ignores information to improve the evidence base” and patients’ disability experiences, which are “complex, fluctuating, episodic, and not immediately visible”, its latest submission read.
In June, the RACGP told the Senate inquiry into the NDIS bill that GPs should have input into the Technical Advisory Group’s eligibility thresholds and functional capacity assessments.
Despite almost 5000 submissions, most of which opposed the bill’s current form, the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs recommended that it pass.
The bill, now law, omitted GPs from formal influence on funding decisions.
“We urge that the increased focus on standardisation across the NDIS does not come at the expense of individualised supports tailored to the needs of participants,” the submission read.
This included requiring assessors to have a health background, ideally with assessments performed by members of a GP-led multidisciplinary team, such as practice nurses.
The college’s submission also argued GPs should be empowered to interpret I-CAN support needs assessments and to contribute their clinical expertise.
However, it affirmed GPs’ input must be “circumspect and limited to factual matters rather than opinion”, and that GPs should not be involved in disputes between the NDIA and patients over funding decisions, which could place them at personal risk with their patients.
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Dr John Crimmins, chair of the RACGP disability-specific interest group and an experienced GP with patients with moderate to severe disability, said the integral role of GPs in understanding how a person’s disability affects their daily capacity had been overlooked.
“The Department of Health and Ageing has clearly put a lot of time and effort into getting general practice back as a cornerstone of health delivery,” he said.
But he told The Medical Republic the NDIS was “not in step” with the DoHDA.
“Most people with a severe disability will have a GP practice they regularly attend,” he said.
“And yet, they [the NDIS] give more weight to non-GP specialists, such as paediatricians, psychiatrists, neurologists. Their opinions are valued more than GPs. In fact, the GP is not mentioned as a medical specialist,” he said.
This risked patients’ support needs being underestimated, particularly those with severe impairments that affect their communication and their ability to self-advocate, Dr Crimmins told TMR.
“We’d like a valid and reliable method of collecting the GP’s opinion, but once collected, the GP’s opinion must be weighted very highly. Even better, is that the general practice itself should be doing a lot of these assessments,” Dr Crimmins said.
Functional capacity assessments must be ongoing, not static, Dr Crimmins said.
“People’s capacities do change over time, and the biggest impact on those changes is their health.”
“There are often psychosocial, environmental, and financial complexities around a disability, and one tool or one profession cannot comprehensively capture all these determinants on its or their own,” the submission read.
But the college also urged that GPs be informed of every NDIS application connected to their patients, receive a copy of the patient’s NDIS plan, and be able to contact a participant’s direct NDIS providers, with patient consent, to amend a plan.
“This could help to reduce low value care and duplication of services, ensuring the sustainability of the NDIS in the long term,” the submission read.
GP chronic condition management plans and reports could also help reduce bureaucracy, but only with sufficient funding to complete NDIS forms and other relevant paperwork via MyMedicare – an initiative the college argued would reduce patients’ financial and access burdens.
But it would also require the NDIS forms to be integrated with common general practice CSIs, the college said.
For those who would be removed from the NDIS, the RACGP called for consideration of how the MBS could better support people with disability to access care from their trusted GP
“Treatment expectations should be realistic and not require patients to exhaust every conceivable option before receiving NDIS funding,” the submission read.
It also called for greater clarity on when children could transition from the NDIS to the Thriving Kids program, and vice versa.
Consultation closed on 2 October 2026.
Read the RACGP’s submission here.
