High intensity supports

What are high intensity supports?

High intensity supports are NDIS daily living supports that involve complex, higher-risk health-related tasks, such as complex bowel care, enteral (tube) feeding, tracheostomy care or ventilator management, delivered by support workers with specific training. They are claimed against separate "High Intensity" support items with a higher price limit than standard supports. Providers must meet an extra set of quality standards to deliver them.

The term is used in three related ways. For a participant, it describes the kind of help they need. For a provider, it is a set of support items in the NDIS pricing arrangements and a registration group, 0104 High Intensity Daily Personal Activities. And for the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, it is a supplementary module of the NDIS Practice Standards with its own training and competency requirements.

What counts as a high intensity support

The NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits 2025-26 define a support as high intensity if it is one or more of the activities in Schedule 2, Module 1 of the NDIS (Provider Registration and Practice Standards) Rules 2018. Module 1 lists eight activities:

For each activity, the NDIS Commission publishes high intensity support skills descriptors, which set out the skills and knowledge workers need. Many of these tasks are also medication or health related, so they overlap with the NDIS's "disability-related health supports". The Pricing Arrangements say these are funded when they relate directly to the participant's disability and are needed regularly; acute care stays with the health system.

What is no longer high intensity: behaviours of concern

Behaviours of concern used to count towards high intensity. The 2024-25 Pricing Arrangements removed them from the definition, and from 1 October 2024 the NDIA introduced a separate category, Intensive and Complex Behaviour Supports, claimable at the same price limit as high intensity supports. Under the 2025-26 Pricing Arrangements, a support is Intensive and Complex Behaviour Support when the participant:

1. displays frequent behaviours of concern that have a significant effect on their own or others' wellbeing and safety;
2. needs intensive support and frequent or daily proactive strategies, skill development and response strategies, which may include restrictive practices; and
3. may be experiencing other issues that make their behaviour support needs more complex.

The provider must be implementing the participant's interim or comprehensive behaviour support plan and be registered and assessed for Module 2A (Implementing Behaviour Support Plans), or have applied with a completed Module 2A audit by 30 June 2025. Plan managers must use a provider who has completed Module 2A for these supports.

How high intensity supports are funded and priced

High intensity is not a separate budget. The supports are funded from the participant's Core supports, mostly Assistance with daily life and social and community participation, at a higher rate because they need more skilled workers. In SIL, intensity is one of the factors the NDIA uses to set funding: the SIL operational guideline uses two levels, standard and high intensity, and allows more irregular support days a year for high intensity needs.

The 2026-27 NDIS pricing schedule, effective 24 September 2026, groups support worker items into four Disability Support Worker levels. Level 2 covers the high intensity and intensive and complex behaviour versions of daily living supports, and is costed from the average of SCHADS Award levels 2.4 and 3.1, compared with level 2.3 for standard Level 1 items (NDIA pricing arrangements). That cost-model choice is why high intensity limits sit above standard ones.

Like other support worker items, high intensity items have a separate item number for each time band: weekday daytime, weekday evening, weekday night, Saturday, Sunday and public holiday. Examples include:

• Assistance with Self-Care Activities – High Intensity (registration group 0104), for one-to-one personal care.
• Access Community Social and Recreational Activities – High Intensity and Group Activities – High Intensity, for community participation.
• Supported Independent Living – High Intensity (registration group 0138), for SIL.
• Intensive and Complex Behaviour Supports, which have their own items in several registration groups.

You can look up each item's current national, remote and very remote limit in the free NDIS price guide. To compare what you pay workers with what you can claim, use the SCHADS pay calculator.

What providers need to deliver high intensity supports

Registered providers delivering high intensity supports must meet the Commission's High Intensity Daily Personal Activities supplementary module as well as the core Practice Standards. Registration group 0104 requires a certification audit, and a registered provider can only deliver the high intensity activities listed on its certificate of registration.

To claim from NDIA-managed funding, you must be a registered NDIS provider whose registration covers the group for the item. Plan managers must apply the price limits and claiming rules whether a provider is registered or not. Whatever your registration status, the NDIS Code of Conduct requires supports to be delivered safely and competently, so workers need training for the specific task and the specific participant.

What participants should know

• Ask about training. You can ask a provider how its workers are trained and assessed for your specific support, such as your catheter or feeding regime, and who trained them.
• Your plan should reflect the intensity. If your needs have become more complex, evidence from your health team and a functional capacity assessment can support a plan reassessment.
• High intensity costs more per hour. Because the limit is higher, the same number of hours uses more of your budget. A budget tracker helps you see that early.
• Not every complex need is high intensity. Some supports are delivered by nurses and claimed as nursing items, and acute or hospital care is funded by the health system.

Common mistakes with high intensity claims

• Claiming high intensity for behaviours of concern. Since the 2024-25 changes these belong under Intensive and Complex Behaviour Supports, with their own conditions.
• Claiming the whole shift as high intensity "because the participant is complex" without the support including a Module 1 activity, or without evidence in the plan and progress notes.
• Sending untrained workers. General first aid or a Certificate III is not the same as competency in a specific high intensity activity for that participant.
• Delivering activities outside your registration. A registered provider can only deliver the high intensity activities on its certificate.
• Letting competencies lapse. Track refresher training and re-assessment as your policies and the participant's health plan require.