NDIS changes 2026 to 2028: what plan managers and coordinators do now

When the road rules change, you don't stop driving. You read the new signs, and you leave a bit earlier.

The NDIS is changing the signs for plan managers and support coordinators over the next two years. None of it happens overnight, but each change has a date, and the work to get ready starts well before it.

The three dates that matter

• 1 December 2026: 90 days to claim. For supports delivered from this date, claims must be made within 90 days of delivery. The old window was 2 years. Plan managers will need invoices from providers sooner, and will have less time between receiving an invoice and paying it.
• By 1 October 2027: the plan management panel. The NDIA will choose a panel of plan managers through a request for tender published on AusTender. Plan managers who want to stay in the market have to apply. After a 6-month transition, participants will only be able to use a plan manager on the panel.
• 1 July 2028: Support Coordination and Connection. Support coordination moves from something participants buy from their plan to a service the NDIA commissions from chosen organisations. Until then, support coordination keeps working under the current arrangements. The design is still being decided: consultation closed on 2 October 2026.

Participants and plan managers will also need to keep records about NDIS support payments for 3 years.

What it means if you manage plans

The panel will be chosen by tender, and the tender hasn't been published yet, so nobody can tell you its exact questions. What the NDIA has said is that the aim is a trusted panel and better quality plan management. It's reasonable to expect that a plan manager who can show how it checks and pays providers, with dates and records, will be in a better position than one who has to rebuild that story from email and screenshots.

The 90-day window adds pressure from the other side. When you have to pay faster, there's less time to check a provider by hand before you do. Provider status keeps moving: in eight weeks to 26 September 2026, 66 revocations of registration and 35 banning orders took effect.

What it means if you coordinate supports

Nothing changes in how you work today, and it won't until 1 July 2028. But the new service will be commissioned, which usually means organisations show their quality, safeguards and record keeping to win a contract. The habits that help a plan manager on the panel will help a support coordination organisation too.

Four things to do this year

1. Know your claim gap. Count how many invoices last quarter were paid more than 90 days after the support was delivered. That is your size of problem before 1 December.
2. Write down how you check providers. Which sources, how often, who does it. One page is enough to start.
3. Keep a dated record. Every provider check with its date and the date of the official record behind it. If an auditor or a tender asks, the answer is already written down.
4. Watch for the tender and the final SCC design. Both will come from the NDIA and the Department. Read them early; a tender response written in a hurry shows.

Where TrueBlue Scout fits

TrueBlue Scout does the provider-checking part of this list. It checks your providers against the NDIS provider register, the NDIS Commission's compliance actions and the Australian Business Register, keeps watching your saved list, emails you when something changes, and gives you a dated record of your checks you can download.

What it won't do: it doesn't score providers, it doesn't tell you what to decide, and it can't promise anyone a place on a panel. Providers can't pay to appear, rank higher or be removed.

You can try it on your own providers with Check a list, free for up to five ABNs, and How it works explains where each fact comes from.

Talk it through with others

These changes are easier to work through together. We run a free Facebook group, NDIS Reform Watch: Plan Managers & Support Coordinators, where we post each change with its official source as it lands, and members share how they're getting ready.

Coming next

What a cancelled ABN can and can't tell you, and the questions worth asking a provider when you see one.

New signs, same road. The earlier you read them, the calmer the drive.