A Price Freeze Is a Pay Cut: PACFA Responds to the NDIS Pricing Review
The NDIS has published its 2026-27 Annual Pricing Review (APR), and PACFA is not letting the quiet sections go unnoticed.
Here is where things stand, and here is what we are doing about it.
What changed on 1 July 2026
The rate for Counselling, which covers both Counselling and Psychotherapy, has been held flat. It has not gone up. We think that is the wrong call. Tertiary qualified Counsellors and Psychotherapists carry the training, the standards and the clinical responsibility to match any allied health profession, and their pricing should say so. Our most recent submission making that case to the NDIS is here.
Two things did move. The NDIS has cut the rate for 'Other Professionals' down to the Counselling rate, and providers claiming under that category must now name the specific profession delivering the service. The NDIA has also confirmed that 'Other Professional' does not apply to Counsellors or Psychotherapists. Both sit under the Counselling item.
Read the new APR for yourself here
We are not doing this alone
PACFA has joined forces with Allied Health Professions Australia (AHPA) to go after the structural problem, not just this year's number. Together we are demanding:
- An independent advisory group, with allied health at the table, shaping future NDIS policy and pricing
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Data drawn from a genuine cross-section of therapy providers, including sole traders and small businesses, not just the big end of town
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Pricing set independently, not behind closed doors
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A pricing framework built on the real cost of NDIS sessions and the actual workforce mix delivering them
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Pricing that keeps a quality therapy market alive, so participants keep real choice and real flexibility
Why this matters, and why we are pushing hard
More than 465,000 NDIS participants could end up with less access to Therapy Supports off the back of this review. The NDIA calls it a price freeze. In the real world, with operating costs climbing every quarter, a freeze is a cut. Providers are absorbing the difference until they cannot, and when they stop, it is participants who lose their therapist.
AHPA CEO Bronwyn Morris-Donovan said the pricing freeze threatens the sustainability of the allied health workforce, making it harder for practitioners to remain financially viable and ultimately limiting participants’ access to essential therapy services. She emphasised that, in practice, freezing prices while operating costs continue to rise amounts to a funding reduction, leaving participants likely to experience fewer choices and reduced access to care.
The review's own evidence base tells the story. The current Therapy Pricing Review pilot draws on 27 organisations out of roughly 55,000 providers. That is not a representative sample of a sector this size and this varied, and it certainly does not capture the small, regional and remote providers doing some of the hardest work. PACFA and AHPA are calling for a pricing framework that is representative, independently informed, and honest about what quality therapy actually costs.