Free OT Referrer Guide for Support Coordinators & Other Referrers
Making an effective Occupational Therapy referral to begin with saves time for everyone involved and ensures that your participant receives the appropriate support more quickly.
With varying funding categories, service types, intake requirements, and the need for extensive email exchanges, the referral process can often become more complicated than necessary.

We created this guide to simplify it.
It's a practical, easy-to-follow resource designed specifically for Support Coordinators, LACs, Plan Managers, and allied health referrers who work with NDIS participants.
We hope it will become a working reference you'll come back to.
What you'll find inside the guide:
Designed to help you refer better, faster, and with less follow-up, this OT Referrer Guide will take you through these steps and checklists:
- When to Refer to OT. What occupational therapy helps with for NDIS participants, the most common referral reasons, when OT is the right fit, and when another service may serve your participant better.
- What to Include in Your Referral. A field-by-field guide to what helps intake faster: participant details, NDIS plan information, clinical context, risk considerations, and what to attach. Includes a ready-to-use checklist.
- Aligning OT Goals with NDIS Funding. How OT sits across Capacity Building, Core, and Capital Supports, with a supporting goal-to-funding matrix and real examples of how to write OT goals that hold up in a planning conversation.
- Step-by-Step: Our Referral & Intake Process. Exactly what happens from the moment we receive your referral to the first appointment — with timeframes at every stage so you know what to expect and when to follow up.
- Service Agreements Made Simple. What a service agreement covers, who can sign, and how we handle changes to goals or funding mid-plan.
- Communication & Updates. What we commit to telling you, and when, so you're never left chasing a referral you've already submitted.
- Practical Tools & Quick Reference. A "which OT service is best?" decision guide, a quick-reference funding table, and sample OT goals aligned to NDIS categories.
- Frequently Asked Questions. The questions referrers ask us most, including diagnosis requirements, school-based referrals, report timeframes, and what happens when funding runs low.
- Referral Checklist. A complete referral readiness checklist, key contact details, and a glossary of NDIS terms for referrers who are newer to the sector.
Free. No obligation. Yours to keep.
You may also be interested in our guide for making confident PBS referrals, specifically designed for Support Coordinators and referrers like you.
Find out how this PBS Referrer Guide can assist you and your participants.
