Valuing a support coordination business before the funding model changes

What is funded, and for how long

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission describes support coordination as a capacity building support that helps a participant understand and use their plan, connect with providers and community, and build skills to coordinate their own supports. Its consultation paper on mandatory registration describes three levels: Level 1, support connection; Level 2, coordination of supports; and Level 3, specialist support coordination, for which a registered provider must also comply with a supplementary practice standards module.

The Department and NDIA's September 2026 consultation paper states that providers are currently paid an hourly rate, and the NDIS pricing schedules set maximum prices that providers cannot exceed, so a weak year cannot be fixed by charging more. HPNA rebuilds the trading history as hours claimed by level, coordinator and participant, then reprices it to the settings at the valuation date, because, as the NDIS business valuations page explains, periods either side of a 1 July may not be comparable.

Caseload, utilisation and the hours never billed

Maintainable earnings, the profit the business can keep producing under ordinary conditions before interest and tax, depend here on three ratios: participants per coordinator, billable hours per participant per plan, and the share of a coordinator's paid time that is claimed. The Commission's August 2026 campaign snapshot notes that a majority of medium and large providers (100 or more participants) use a team structure in which a dedicated team leader carries a reduced or no billable caseload, a cost a buyer typically has to fund. HPNA costs supervision and unbillable administration at what they consume, and charges a market salary for an owner who also carries a caseload. See what is maintainable earnings.

Hours allocated but never drawn are not revenue, and the Department states that from 1 February 2027 unspent funds will not roll over into a renewed plan, so HPNA measures billed hours against allocated hours by participant.

Participant churn at reassessment

Revenue is rarely held under long-term contracts: a participant can generally change coordinator on the notice in the service agreement, and the allocation can change at reassessment. The Department states that since 27 August 2026 only a participant, their plan nominee or their guardian can request an unscheduled reassessment. HPNA lists plan end dates, measures how many participants left over the last two plan cycles, and tests how much revenue sits with the largest few participants and referrers. The Commission also states that on a change of ownership participants must not be automatically moved to the new owner. See participant and referral concentration.

Conflict of interest and the revenue beside the coordination

Coordination often sits inside a provider that also delivers the supports it coordinates. In 51 voluntary site visits in 2025, to providers that had billed for support coordination and other services, the Commission's August 2026 campaign snapshot found 71 per cent delivered other services alongside coordination, under the same ABN or an associated entity, and eight non-compliant, six of them on matters that included conflict of interest. The consultation paper lists conflicts of interest where organisations provide both support coordination and direct services among the challenges behind the reform, and its proposed model would bar the new service and its workers from providing other NDIS supports.

This matters twice. Other-segment revenue that arrived through the coordinators is at risk if the coordination stops, so HPNA traces referrals between segments before valuing either. And a buyer keeping both operates in an area the Commission has targeted in a compliance campaign, so HPNA reads the conflict of interest register and any corrective action requests.

How the 2028 reform sits in the valuation

A valuation cannot assume the reform away or pretend to know its final design; it states what is published and values on explicit assumptions. The Department states that from 1 July 2028 the NDIA will appoint providers directly, chosen through a merit-based process, to deliver a new support coordination and connection service, and that support coordination will not be funded individually in plans. The September 2026 consultation paper adds that this replaces participants buying support coordination from approximately 11,000 support coordinators, that the preferred early model is one lead organisation per region, that not every participant will be eligible, and that some current providers may transition while others will no longer deliver these services from 1 July 2028. The final design is a decision for the Government.

Three consequences follow. Plan-funded hours have a finite horizon, so a capitalisation of maintainable earnings, which values earnings as if they continued indefinitely, overstates value unless adjusted. HPNA models them on a discounted cash flow, which values forecast cash flows at a rate reflecting their risk, running to the transition date with a stated assumption about what the business holds afterwards. Any value attributed to winning a commissioned contract is speculative and is shown separately, if at all. And the report shows how the conclusion moves if the transition date, the eligible share of the caseload or the churn rate changes.

Goodwill, registration and what a buyer acquires

Goodwill is the value of the business above its identifiable net assets, and it has sources. The transferable sources here are documented participant relationships, the coordinators who hold them, referral pathways into community services, and the systems recording conflicts and case notes. Personal goodwill, the source that follows the owner, is common where the founder carries the largest caseload.

Support coordination is not on the Commission's list of supports that require registration, and the Commission states that mandatory registration of it is paused while further reform is considered, so a book serving only self-managed and plan-managed participants may be unregistered. Serving NDIA-managed participants requires registration, which the Commission states is linked to a single ABN and not transferable, so whether assets or shares are sold decides what the buyer can deliver on day one. See selling an NDIS business and how it works.