NDIS Compliance Checklist: Ensure Your Business is Ready

Stay Compliant: Your Essential NDIS Compliance Checklist for Providers

As an NDIS provider, it’s up to you to ensure your business remains compliant with the latest NDIS rules and regulations. But with compliance requirements constantly changing, it can be challenging to stay up to date, especially while you’re trying to deliver quality NDIS supports to your clients.

With this in mind, we’ve created an NDIS compliance checklist to help you maintain your provider compliance obligations.

NDIS provider compliance requirements

Under section 73F of the NDIS Act, registered NDIS providers must meet the compliance requirements set out under their conditions of registration. This includes complying with:

• NDIS Practice Standards,
• Code of Conduct,
• Complaints management and resolution,
• Incident management and reportable incidents,
• Worker screening,
• Key personnel suitability, and
• Notifying changes or events.

Let’s look at each compliance area in a little more detail or download our up-to-date NDIS Compliance Checklist.

NDIS Practice Standards

The NDIS Practice Standards set out the quality and safety benchmarks that NDIS providers must meet to ensure they deliver high-quality, participant-focused services. These standards cover key aspects of service delivery and operational management, ensuring consistency, safety, and dignity for participants.

The Core Module of the Practice Standards comprises 24 standards grouped into four key areas:

• Rights of participants and responsibilities of providers,
• Governance and operational management,
• Provision of supports, and
• The support provision environment.

By adhering to these standards, NDIS providers ensure they meet the compliance requirements set by the NDIS Commission, creating a framework for delivering high-quality services that protect and empower participants.

NDIS Code of Conduct

The NDIS Code of Conduct outlines the ethical and professional standards required for all NDIS providers and their workers. It’s designed to ensure the safety, dignity, and well-being of NDIS participants. Providers must adhere to these principles to remain compliant with the NDIS framework.

As part of their obligations, providers must also support their workers to understand and apply the NDIS Code of Conduct throughout the course of their daily tasks.

Complaints management and resolution

Providers must establish a clear, transparent process for managing and resolving complaints to comply with NDIS regulations and uphold participants’ rights. This involves ensuring participants are aware of their rights and understand how to make a complaint.

Incident management and reportable incidents

In addition to implementing a complaints management system, NDIS providers must also develop their own incident management system to document and address any reportable incidents. Providers are required to report serious incidents, including allegations, to the NDIS commission, that relate to:

• The death of an NDIS participant,
• Serious injury of an NDIS participant,
• Abuse or neglect of an NDIS participant,
• Unlawful sexual or physical contact with, or assault of, an NDIS participant,
• Sexual misconduct committed against, or in the presence of, an NDIS participant, including grooming of the NDIS participant for sexual activity,
• The unauthorised use of a restrictive practice in relation to an NDIS participant.

You can read more on NDIS incident reporting here.

Worker screening

The NDIS worker screening process is a critical aspect of provider compliance. It ensures only suitable individuals work with NDIS participants, particularly those in vulnerable situations. It involves a mandatory background check for workers engaged in risk-assessed roles within NDIS service delivery.

The worker screening process checks for criminal history, past conduct, and other relevant records, including workplace misconduct and disciplinary actions, to assess whether a worker poses any risk to NDIS participants.

While registered NDIS providers must screen all workers before signing them onto their books, they are also required to provide ongoing training to ensure their staff understand their obligations under the NDIS. Not to mention, providers also need to have systems in place to ensure ongoing compliance, including maintaining up-to-date records of worker screenings and regularly checking the status of clearances.

Key personnel suitability

Key personnel refers to individuals in key executive, management or operational positions within NDIS provider organisations, like Managers, Chief Executive Officer, Company Directors, Board Members, or Chairperson.

As part of the application for registration process, NDIS providers must disclose all key personnel. This information is used as part of the NDIS Commission’s suitability assessment. Ultimately, the assessment considers whether these personnel have been involved past convictions, enforcement actions, insolvancies, fraud, or any other events that might make them unsuitable for future NDIS ventures.

Notifying changes or events

As an NDIS provider, you must inform the NDIS Commission of any changes or events that impact your ability to provide services to NDIS participants. This includes events like worker shortages or changes in the legal entity or business structure.

Download our NDIS compliance checklist to help you maintain your provider compliance obligations.

What is non-compliance?

NDIS providers typically undergo audits every three years as part of the NDIS registration and compliance process. That said, the frequency and scope of these audits can vary based on the provider’s registration status, services, and risk profile. NDIS providers will also undergo an audit during the application for registration or renewal process.

As part of the audit process, auditors consider whether the provider has maintained compliance with with NDIS Practice Standards and meets the NDIS Code of Conduct. With this in mind, it’s essential that providers clear, accessible records and documentation relating to service agreements, risk assessments, and incident reports. It can also help to have a compliance checklist on hand to make sure you’re meeting your obligations as an NDIS provider.

Audits are designed to be collaborative, giving providers an opportunity to improve their practices. After the audit, providers will receive a report that outlines any areas of non-compliance, and they will need to implement corrective actions within a specified timeframe to maintain their registration.

Maintaining compliance with CareMaster

Ensuring NDIS compliance can be incredibly time consuming, not to mention overwhelming. But with the help of specialty NDIS software, like CareMaster, you can streamline you service and stay up to date with the latest regulations.

At CareMaster, our comprehensive platform ensures NDIS compliance by incorporating the NDIA standards throughout our system. From providing incident management tools to offering support for your workers, our platform also allows you to comply with your six key obligations, including:

• Make claims for payments that are correct and truthful,
• Only provide and charge for supports that are in line with a participant’s plan,
• Identify, declare, and manage any conflict of interest, including disclosing this information to the participant,
• Behave fairly and ethically in all your financial dealings,
• Don’t purposely mislead anyone to gain a financial or other advantage, and
• Don’t try to convince a public officer to act unethically.

Get in touch to learn more about how CareMaster can help you maintain NDIS compliance and provide quality NDIS support.

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