What to Take to a Plan Reassessment Meeting

Four things, not a folder

Take a one page summary, your current reports, a picture of how this plan was spent, and a written list of what you want changed. That is the whole kit, and it fits in a document wallet.

The instinct is to bring everything, and everything is worse. A planner has a set amount of time with you, and every minute spent finding a page in a two hundred page folder is a minute not spent on what you need. Preparation is mostly subtraction.

The one page summary does the most work

Write a single page, in your own words, covering four things: who you are and who supports you, what a typical week looks like now, what changed since the last plan, and what you are asking for.

Hand a copy over at the start of the meeting and keep one in front of you. It sets the agenda, it survives after you leave, and it means the record of the meeting is partly yours rather than entirely the notes of whoever was typing.

Keep it concrete. "Needs help with personal care" says almost nothing. "Two workers are needed for the morning shower since the shoulder surgery in June, which the OT report on page 3 sets out" says everything, and it points at the document that backs it up.

The evidence, dated and relevant

Bring the reports that describe your situation now: occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech pathology, positive behaviour support, specialist letters, and any provider report about how supports are actually going. Anything older than about two years is usually context rather than evidence.

Each report should say what you cannot do without support, what happens without it, and what the writer recommends, in that order. Our guide to writing evidence a planner can use covers how to ask a therapist for that shape, and what evidence a reassessment actually needs covers which documents carry weight.

If a report you were promised has not arrived, take the email chain showing you requested it. A missing report you can prove you chased is a different conversation from one that simply is not there.

One thing worth knowing before you walk in: a support needs assessment may form part of the process, and it is a structured conversation rather than a document you bring. Our piece on preparing for a support needs assessment sets out how that sits alongside the meeting.

How the current plan was actually spent

Take a spending picture, printed or on a screen you can turn around. If you are plan managed, your plan manager can produce a statement. If you are agency managed, the myplace portal shows what has been claimed against each budget. If you self-manage, bring your own record.

This matters in both directions. A budget that ran out early is an argument for more, but only if you can show what it was spent on. A budget with money left in it needs explaining before someone else explains it for you, and the honest explanation is very often that supports were not available rather than not needed.

Take a note of anything you paid for yourself because the plan would not stretch, and anything you went without. Both are evidence, and neither appears in a portal.

If funding periods have shaped how the money came through, say so plainly. Our explainer on how funding periods work covers the practical effect on a household.

The list of what you want changed

Write it before the meeting, not during it. Three to six specific asks, each one attached to a reason and a document.

Specific means an amount or a frequency. "More community access" invites a nod and nothing else. "Community participation twice a week rather than once, so the TAFE course on Wednesdays is possible alongside the Saturday group" is a decision someone can make.

Include the practical things people leave out: how supports should be managed, whether you want the same plan length, and any provider or worker arrangement that needs to keep running. A plan that funds the right amount but disrupts a working arrangement is still a bad outcome.

What to leave at home

The complete medical history. Diagnosis paperwork from a decade ago. Anything that argues about a past decision rather than describing today. The reassessment is about support needs now and going forward, and time spent relitigating the last plan is time taken from this one.

Also leave behind the assumption that you have to do this alone. You can bring a support coordinator, a family member, a friend or an advocate, and you can ask for the meeting to be recorded or for notes to be sent to you afterwards. Ask about that at the start rather than at the end.

After the meeting

Write down what was said while it is fresh, particularly anything you were told about timing or about further information being needed. Send a short email confirming your understanding, and keep it.

Decisions about funding sit with the NDIA and turn on the evidence in front of them, so nobody in the meeting, including a provider, can tell you what the outcome will be. What you can control is whether the evidence made it into the room.