Choosing an NDIS physio shouldn’t feel like buying a car. But for a lot of participants and families, the experience of comparing providers in Sydney is bewildering — long phone calls that don’t go anywhere, providers with three-week wait times, and no clear sense of what the service is actually going to look like.
We’re a registered NDIS provider; we know the system from the inside, and we know what good and bad look like across the industry. The questions below are the ones we think every participant should ask before they sign a service agreement — even with us.
1. Are you registered with the NDIS Commission?
NDIA-managed participants can only use registered providers, so this matters for that group specifically. Plan-managed and self-managed participants can use either registered or unregistered providers — but registration is still a useful proxy. Registered providers have been audited, carry full insurance, follow the NDIS Code of Conduct, and have a Complaints process that goes to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.
Ask for the provider’s registration number. A legitimate provider will give it to you without hesitation. (Ours appears on every service agreement and is also available on the NDIS public register.)
2. How quickly can you start, and what does the wait look like?
Some providers tell participants they "can start next week" and then push the first appointment out two months because their next available clinician is genuinely two months out. Ask the specific question:
"When can the first assessment happen, and what does the gap between first and second appointments look like?"
A good provider will give you a specific date for the first session and a specific cadence after that — weekly, fortnightly, monthly — based on what your goals actually need.
3. Do you write the kind of reports my plan reviews actually need?
For most participants, the highest-stakes interaction with their physio isn’t a treatment session — it’s a plan-review report. A weak report at plan review can mean a smaller plan next year, which means less therapy, which means slower progress.
Ask: "Can I see a sample (de-identified) progress report?" A provider that’s used to working with the NDIS will have one ready. A provider that hasn’t will give you a vague answer.
Good NDIS reports map every recommendation to the NDIS reasonable-and-necessary tests — disability-related, value for money, likely to be effective, builds on informal supports, NDIS-appropriate. Our NDIS services page explains how we approach this.
4. Will I see the same clinician every visit?
Continuity matters for outcomes. Especially for paediatric clients, post-stroke participants, and people with complex presentations, a different clinician every session adds friction and slows progress. Ask whether the provider can offer continuity, and what happens when your usual clinician is on leave.
The honest answer is rarely "you’ll always see the same person." Holidays happen, illness happens, clinicians move on. But the provider should have a model that prioritises continuity and has a sensible cover plan when it can’t be delivered.
5. Where can you deliver therapy?
For some participants, getting to a clinic is the limiting factor. The question to ask isn’t "do you have a mobile team," it’s "what does mobile delivery actually look like for someone in my situation?"
Useful sub-questions:
- Does the same clinician do mobile and clinic visits, or are these different teams?
- How far do you travel? Do you visit my suburb?
- Can you visit a school or a workplace, not just the home?
- Are aged-care facilities part of the model?
Our in-home services page lists the Greater Sydney suburbs we cover; a good provider should give you a similar level of clarity.
6. Can you coordinate with other providers and the rest of the team?
Most NDIS participants don’t use only physio. Coordinating across physio, OT, speech pathology, support coordination, behaviour support and medical specialists is where the real outcomes come from — and where bad providers fail their participants.
Ask:
- Do you share notes with my Support Coordinator and Plan Manager?
- How do you communicate with other allied health providers I’m using?
- Will you write to my paediatrician or specialist if something relevant comes up?
- Can the same provider deliver physio, OT and speech if I need all three?
Single-provider delivery isn’t always the right answer (some participants legitimately benefit from a specialist boutique provider for one discipline), but coordination across the team is non-negotiable.
7. What happens if it isn’t working?
Good providers welcome this question. Therapy fit matters; clinician-participant fit matters. Sometimes a switch is the right call. Ask the provider how they handle it.
A reasonable answer covers: a clinician-change pathway if the rapport isn’t working, a formal complaints process for genuine concerns, and a service-agreement structure that doesn’t lock you in for a long block of pre-paid sessions before you’ve seen whether the fit is right.
Cooperate with people who let you leave gracefully. Be careful of providers whose service agreements make changing providers expensive or slow.
A note for Support Coordinators
Most of these questions apply just as well when you’re screening providers on behalf of a participant. The two extra ones we’d add:
- Will you communicate directly with us, and on what cadence?
- How do you handle scheduling and capacity for participants we send you?
Providers who treat Support Coordinators as partners rather than gatekeepers are easier to work with and produce better outcomes for participants.
Red flags to walk away from
A few patterns we see across the industry that should make you cautious. None of them is technically illegal; all of them are signs the provider is optimising for something other than the participant.
- Pressure to pre-pay for a large block of sessions before any therapy has happened
- Service agreements that don’t spell out cancellation terms or how to leave the provider
- Reports written by someone the participant has never met
- Inability or refusal to communicate with the rest of the participant’s team
- Vague answers about clinician qualifications or AHPRA registration
- Sessions billed at the maximum NDIS rate with no equivalent in value (e.g. very short visits, group sessions billed as individual)
How funding gets paid — a quick refresher
For agency-managed participants, the provider invoices the NDIA directly through the portal. For plan-managed participants, the provider invoices the Plan Manager. For self-managed participants, the provider invoices the participant and the participant claims back. The clinical service is identical across all three; only the paperwork differs.
The NDIS price guide caps what a provider can charge per hour. A good provider doesn’t need to justify charging the cap rate; they just need to show that the hour delivers value the participant can use.
What good looks like
A good NDIS physio in Sydney should: see you within a week or two of referral, communicate clearly about funding, write plan-review-ready reports, deliver continuity, offer real flexibility on location, coordinate openly with the rest of your team, and behave well when something needs adjusting. None of that should be remarkable. Most providers manage some of it; the good ones manage all of it.
If you’re a Sydney NDIS participant or a Support Coordinator looking for a provider, our intake team will answer all seven questions above in a 15-minute call. No pressure, no service agreement.