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NDIS line items: the hours dietitians do not claim
Most dietitians working with NDIS participants know the direct-service line item. Fewer consistently claim the other four, and one of those four covers the work that eats the most unbilled time: writing the report.
Here is the full set for the dietitian registration group, what each covers, and where the hours go missing.
Figures below are national price limits for 2026-27. The NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits are updated annually, usually on 1 July, and remote and very remote loadings apply on top. Confirm the current schedule before you invoice.
Five line items, one registration group
All of these sit under registration group 0128 – Dietitian, in Capacity Building – Improved Daily Living, and all are billed per hour.
| What you did | Line item | National limit 2026-27 |
|---|---|---|
| Saw the participant | 01_760_0128_3_3 | $178.99/hr |
| Saw them by telehealth | 01_760_0128_3_3_TH | $178.99/hr |
| Worked on their supports, not with them | 01_760_0128_3_3_NF | $178.99/hr |
| Wrote a report the NDIA asked for | 01_760_0128_3_3_RR | $178.99/hr |
| Travelled to them | 01_760_0128_3_3_PT | $89.50/hr |
Note what that table says: four of the five pay the same rate. Telehealth is not discounted. Non-face-to-face work is not discounted. A report the NDIA requested is not discounted.
The one that gets left on the table
_NF — non-face-to-face — covers work you do on the participant’s supports when they are not in the room. Writing up the mealtime management plan. Building the texture-modified diet guide for the support workers. Preparing the material for a plan review.
It is claimable when it is reasonable and necessary, directly related to delivering the participant’s supports, and agreed with the participant in advance. That last condition is the one that makes it feel awkward, so it often does not get raised, and the hour gets absorbed.
It is better to raise it at the service agreement stage than to discover three months in that you have written six plans for free. Participants generally understand that the plan has to be written by someone, and the service agreement is the right place for that conversation.
_RR is narrower: reports the NDIA has specifically requested. If you are unsure which of the two a piece of writing falls under, the schedule is the arbiter, and the claiming rules do change.
Travel is half rate, and conditional
Provider travel is $89.50/hr — half the direct-service rate — and it is claimable only within the limits and MMM rules in the schedule, with the participant’s agreement beforehand. It is not a general right to bill your commute.
Remote loadings are real money
The national figure is the floor. Remote (MMM 6) and very remote (MMM 7) price limits are higher, and if you service those areas and bill at the national rate you are discounting yourself by a substantial margin on every hour.
Our free NDIS line items tool shows the support item number, unit, and the national, remote and very remote limits side by side. No account needed.
Where the time actually goes
The pattern we see is not dietitians being careless about billing. It is that the report is written at 8pm, after the clinical day, from a blank document — and at that point nobody is thinking about which line item covers it. The admin decision and the admin work happen at the worst possible moment.
That is a structural problem more than a discipline problem. Two things help:
Decide the billing at the service agreement, not at the invoice. If non-face-to-face work is named in the agreement up front, claiming it later is routine rather than a negotiation.
Do not start reports from a blank page. An NDIS report restates assessment findings, goals and recommendations that already exist in the clinical record. Re-typing them is the expensive part, and it is the part that does not need a clinician.
AI Dietitians drafts NDIS reports from the assessment you have already done, and includes a funding wizard and a meal-prep calculator built for NDIS work. The draft is a draft: you review it, change what is wrong, and sign it. What it removes is the re-typing, not the judgement.
References
- NDIS, Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits — the current schedule, updated annually, including the Dietitian table and MMM remote loadings.
- NDIS, Provider travel rules
- NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Provider obligations
National price limits shown are for 2026-27 and are updated annually. Remote and very remote loadings apply. Claiming rules for non-face-to-face and report items change — confirm against the current NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits before invoicing. This article is general information for clinicians and is not billing, legal or financial advice.