The role of the treating professional is to provide objective evidence that the patient has a permanent impairment that results in substantially reduced functional capacity in one or more of the following areas: mobility, communication, social interaction, self-management, learning and self-care.
You can provide this information by:
- completing the ‘Treating Professional’ section of the Access Request Form (Part F of the current Access Request Form); and/or
- attaching relevant reports, letters and/or assessments from one or more treating professionals, if you feel this information is already adequately detailed elsewhere. This may include preparing your own letter/report to
- (i) clearly articulate the diagnosis (i.e. nature of the impairment resulting in disability) and likely permanence, and
- (ii) outline its functional impact and the types of support required.
If your patient has a psychosocial disability, you can also choose to complete the Evidence of Psychosocial Disability Form (PDF 482KB), which has prompts specific to psychosocial disability to help you detail the information required.
In this case, you should clearly mark on the Access Request Form that an Evidence of Psychosocial Disability Form is attached.
As a GP, you need to decide if you are the right treating professional to be providing this information.
If you do not have enough information on file or you don’t fully understand the functional impact of a patient’s impairment, you may need to reach out to other treating professionals (e.g. specialist doctor, allied health professional) for copies of existing reports, letters and/or assessments.
Alternatively, if you believe another treating professional is better placed to articulate the functional impact of the patient’s impairment and the types of support required, you may choose to refer the patient on to this professional for the support they need to access the NDIS.
Requesting costly new assessments from allied health professionals or other specialists is not required if sufficient evidence of impairment and its functional impact already exists.
Please refer to our ‘Who can help?’ brochure for advice on who can assist you in the task of evidence gathering: