Osteopathy Australia's meeting with NDIA Acting Deputy CEO Aaron Verlin

On 3 September 2025, Antony Nicholas, CEO, Natasha Owens, Acting Policy and Advocacy Manager, and Alexander Norden, Policy Officer met with NDIA Acting Deputy CEO, Aaron Verlin to discuss our ongoing application for osteopathy’s recognition in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and raise key issues that have been affecting our members.

The history

We opened the meeting explaining our experience with the NDIA and NDIS Commission over the last several years, including productive meetings with the NDIS Commissioner and Aaron’s predecessor Corri McKenzie in February 2025, where we were directed to gather existing evidence showcasing osteopathy’s tools, techniques and principles of practice to provide to the NDIA.

In May 2025, we submitted a comprehensive scoping review to the NDIA to support our advocacy project for osteopathy to be a recognised profession under the NDIS and to help inform the operational guidelines utilised by plan managers. 

How are osteopaths impacted?  

We are concerned there is a lack of information and understanding of osteopathy at the NDIA, meaning staff and external plan managers alike are not approving funding due to a risk-averse approach.

We asked Aaron for an update on the status of our recognition application following the submission of the scoping review in May 2025, and for better visibility on how osteopathy is understood at the NDIA.

What we discussed

Aaron reinforced that:

• There are no internal guidelines for osteopathy not to be funded for participant plans.
• He acknowledged that without an individual line item for osteopathy, staff and plan managers may be more reluctant to approve the funding.
• With the creation of the NDIS Evidence Advisory Committee, the NDIA and Department of Health, Disability and Ageing will be focusing more on the role of evidence-based supports in the NDIS.

Moving forward

We have and will continue to advocate on your behalf for an individual line item for osteopathy as a priority for osteopaths working in the disability sector.

Once we’ve had feedback from the NDIA on our scoping review, we can further detail how osteopathy benefits people with disability on our website accordingly.

A reminder to all members that as this review process continues, it’s imperative that osteopaths who are working with NDIS participants and claiming therapeutic supports need to ensure their treatments are falling within the bounds of appropriate therapeutic supports. Those who are trying to claim inappropriate osteopathy services for participants may be adversely affecting our efforts to have osteopathy better recognised in the NDIS.