Has ‘Reasonable and Necessary’ Killed Quality?

Here’s a confession that’ll get me uninvited from the next sector forum: I think “reasonable and necessary” has quietly become the most overused phrase in the NDIS, and it’s done a number on how we think about quality.

Don’t get me wrong. R&N is a funding test. It lives in section 34 of the Act for a reason — it decides what the Scheme will pay for. It is a brilliant gate for the money. What it is not is a quality benchmark. And yet, somewhere along the way, we started treating “is it reasonable and necessary?” as if it were the same question as “is it any good?”

It is not the same question. Not even close.

A support can be perfectly reasonable, entirely necessary, fully funded, beautifully coded against the price guide — and still be delivered by a worker who rocks up fifteen minutes late, hasn’t read the plan, and calls the participant “mate” because they can’t remember their name. Reasonable? Sure. Necessary? Absolutely. Quality? Mate, it’s a bin fire.

The trap is sneaky. When every conversation in your org starts with “but is it reasonable and necessary,” you train your whole team to optimise for fundability instead of outcomes. The question stops being “did this change someone’s life this week” and becomes “will this survive a plan review.” Those are not the same thing, and pretending they are is how you end up compliant and useless at the same time.

So, here’s my pitch. Keep R&N exactly where it belongs — in the funding conversation. But the moment a support is approved, retire the phrase for the day and ask the better questions. Did it work? Did the person actually want it? Would they tell their mum it was good? Would you accept it for someone you love?

Reasonable and necessary gets the support funded. Quality is what happens after the invoice. Don’t let the first one eat the second. And don’t even get me started on “choice and control”.

I’m only just warming up on this one — there’s real money and real outcomes in getting the line right. Let’s turn the rant into a plan: book a 30-minute online yarn on my Calendly.

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