NDIS
The scheme itself. Plans, budgets, support categories, and the idea that funding follows the person.
CiaraLink
CiaraLink
For care teams in Australia
This page teaches the scheme first. Then the work. Then what AI can safely do. Then CiaraLink, the ops product we built for that work.
The scheme
The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is how eligible Australians get funded supports for disability. The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) is the Commonwealth agency that administers the scheme: access, plans, and payments.
A different body, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, regulates providers and handles quality and incidents. CiaraLink is not the NDIA, not the Commission, and not a registered provider. We build software for the teams who deliver the work.
The scheme itself. Plans, budgets, support categories, and the idea that funding follows the person.
The agency. Approves access, writes and reviews plans, and pays claims through the channels it sets.
The regulator. Practice standards, worker screening expectations, incidents, and complaints.
Still responsible for roster, notes, consent, pay, and the evidence you keep. Software does not take that off you.
How the work actually moves
A participant gets a plan with money sitting in categories (core, capacity building, capital, and the lines inside them). Someone still has to turn that plan into Tuesday 3pm: who is coming, what was delivered, what was written down, and what can be invoiced.
Payment can run through the NDIA, a plan manager, or self-management. The paperwork still lands on the provider. That is the day we designed for.
Holds the plan and the goals. Chooses providers. Lives the week the roster is supposed to serve.
Support coordinators connect services, chase gaps, and keep the plan usable. They drown when every provider keeps a different spreadsheet.
Employs or contracts the team. Owns roster vs plan, notes, incidents, invoices, and SCHADS decisions.
Does the shift. Needs the handover, writes the note, should not spend forty minutes on admin after a two-hour visit.
Capacity-building work, reports, and reviews. Needs the same participant story, not a third inbox.
Where teams lose the day
Notes live in phones. Rosters live in WhatsApp. Plans live in a PDF. Invoices live in another login. That is how hours disappear, and how evidence goes missing when you need it.
Hours get booked that the category cannot carry, or hours sit unused because nobody can see the remaining budget in the same place as the week view.
A good visit becomes a late, thin, or missing note. That is not a writing problem. It is a tools problem.
SCHADS loadings and NDIS claim lines are different jobs. Mixing them in one spreadsheet is how teams over-claim or under-pay.
The next worker walks in cold. The participant repeats themselves. Continuity was never written down.
Then AI
AI is useful when it shortens a note, sorts a messy voice dump, or points at a conflict. It is not a clinician, not a lawyer, and not the NDIA. Every draft still needs a human who was there, or who owns the record.
Turn a rough shift dump into a cleaner note you review. Flag missing fields. Summarise a handover. Help Hugo, our in-product assistant, prepare an action you still confirm.
No auto-submit to the NDIA. No guaranteed audit pass. No clinical diagnosis. No “compliant because the AI said so.” Review the output before it is saved or sent.
Then CiaraLink
CiaraLink is the Australian product we built so that roster, shift notes, documents, and Hugo sit together. It is for support coordinators, allied health, support workers, and providers. Not a marketplace. Not a commission cut.
This page is general information for care teams, not legal, clinical, or NDIS advice. Plan rules and price guides change. Confirm obligations with the NDIA, the Commission, Fair Work, and your own advisers. CiaraLink is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the NDIA or the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. We do not submit claims for you.