Tips for excellent NDIS report writing

Provider reports are powerful devices in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) that can make or break funding requests. Delivered well, they can demonstrate to the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) where a participant is at and the impact their disability has on their daily life. And they can assist with securing funding for supports that allow people to live as independently as possible.

The NDIA publishes a guide to report writing, but there are extra tips every provider should know if they want to craft documentation to help achieve the best outcomes for their clients – as Linda Grant, one of our Community Engagement and Partnerships Managers, explains.

Previously a support coordinator and a delegate at the NDIA, Linda has seen hundreds – if not thousands – of provider reports across the years, so she’s well placed to offer guidance drawn from the ones that worked and the ones that didn’t. 

Read on for some great report writing tips.

1. Know when reports are required

The NDIA uses evidence to support its decisions when it’s allocating funding for NDIS supports, and provider reports often hold the key to that evidence.

As well as providing recommendations for the future, it’s a reasonable expectation that providers of most Capacity Building Supports will report on supports delivered and progression towards – or achievement of – a person’s goals. These reports are generally requested when a participant has an upcoming plan reassessment, or if they’re alerting the NDIA to a change in their circumstances.

Reports are also required when more expensive or high risk assistive technology and home modifications are needed.

2. Get clear on what to include in your report

When you sit down to write a report or record, make sure you read the NDIA’s guide to report writing first.

Whether you’re a support coordinator writing a progress implementation report, or an allied health professional drafting a plan reassessment report, the NDIA’s guide is clear about the information you need to provide.

3. Know the difference between outcomes and outputs

The NDIA requires providers to think about and document instances of support in terms of outcomes, not outputs.

So, what’s the difference?

An output details an instance of support. For example, ‘Carly went to the city and had a coffee’, whereas an outcome details the result of an activity and its impact. For example, ‘Carly went to the city today. She ordered a coffee and paid for it herself. She needed prompting to wait to receive her change. Outcomes included increasing money handling skills and the opportunity to develop social skills in her community.’.

4. Use the right language

Reports should be written in plain English, without jargon. That’s because they need to be easily understood by your client, their informal supports, and representatives of the NDIA. Don’t assume everyone understands your profession’s terminology.

Using objective, rather than subjective, language to communicate observations is also vital.
Subjective information includes personal perspectives, feelings and opinions, whereas objective language is factual and impartial.

Subjective language can look like this:

• Carly felt that she had progressed towards her goals.
• As Carly’s support worker, I think she's more social.
• Carly had a good day and enjoyed the cooking class.

And objective language looks more like this:

• Carly independently caught public transport and met her support worker at the coffee shop.
• Carly approached the café assistant on her own and ordered her own coffee. She did not require assistance from the support worker to complete her order.
• Carly followed instructions in cooking class and cooked her own meal.

5. Use the terms the NDIA uses

The NDIA uses phrases like:

• ‘Increase social and community participation’
• ‘Independent living skills (e.g. cooking, cleaning, money management)’
• ‘Live as autonomously as possible’
• ‘Increase independence to’
• ‘Build capacity to’
• ‘Sustain informal supports/strengthen sustainability of informal supports’
• ‘Increase choice and control/self-determination’
• ‘Improve health and wellbeing/support and maintain wellbeing’
• ‘Maintain home environment’
• ‘Maintain support relationship’
• ‘Daily living skills’
• ‘Increase economic participation’

Using this terminology, where relevant, can create a stronger report that communicates to the NDIA in its own language. And to further make sure your report writing is NDIS specific, think about converting clinical language to NDIA language.

Clinical language describes health and impairment, while NDIS terminology explains function and participation. A diagnosis may explain what a condition is, but the NDIA also needs to understand what the participant can and can’t do because of it.

Some examples:

6. Include strengths as well as challenges

Good reports don’t only focus on what a participant can’t do, because it’s equally important they describe strengths, achievements, successful strategies, and existing supports that are working well.

For example:

• Skills the participant has developed
• Areas where independence has improved
• Effective support strategies
• Family, community or informal supports
• Assistive technology already being used successfully 

Including strengths provides a more balanced picture of a participant’s life and helps demonstrate how supports contribute to positive outcomes. 

Some final things to consider

With the NDIA’s report writing guide and our tips on hand, you’ll be well on your way to writing an excellent report.

Here are some final points to consider:

• Does the report focus on functional impact of the support on the participant’s life?
• Do you have evidence to support your report (like case notes, rosters, assessments etc)?
• Does your report justify how funds have been spent, mapping incremental targets and achievements with each instance of support?
• If progress towards the participant’s goals has been slow or difficult to achieve, does the report describe why? E.g. difficulty securing housing, time spent in hospital etc.
• Are the report recommendations at the forefront of the document?
• Does the report address the NDIA’s reasonable and necessary criteria and take a lifetime approach to minimise support costs over a participant's lifetime through an early intervention approach?

If you want to know more about provider reporting, we've got you covered in this article NDIS provider reporting 101.