How Allied Health Professionals Can Write I-CAN v6-Ready NDIS Reports

A practical guide for OTs, psychologists, physiotherapists, and other treating professionals

From 1 April 2027, the NDIS transitions to the I-CAN v6 Support Needs Assessment as the primary mechanism for determining participant plans. This changes — significantly — what makes an allied health report useful for NDIS purposes.

The assessment involves a structured interview of approximately three hours. Assessors are trained by the NDIA to gather information across 12 functional domains through that conversation. An algorithm then uses the responses to set the participant's funded support budget.

Your report does not replace the assessment interview. But it shapes how the assessor understands what the participant describes — and it fills gaps that a single interview session, however thorough, cannot capture.

The difference between a report that helps and a report that doesn't comes down to one thing: functional language.

Disclaimer: This article is designed to support allied health professionals in understanding the I-CAN v6 framework for NDIS reporting purposes. It does not constitute legal or regulatory advice. Allied health professionals should refer to their professional body's standards and the NDIA's current guidance on supporting evidence for specific requirements.

---

Why I-CAN v6 Changes What Makes a Useful Report

Under the previous NDIS planning model, a report's value was partly determined by how well it supported a negotiated planning conversation. Reports that described goals, treatment priorities, and clinical trajectory were useful in that context.

Under I-CAN v6, the assessment is structured and algorithmic. The assessor records specific responses to domain-based questions. Those responses feed an algorithm that sets the budget. The process is more standardised and less negotiable than what preceded it — which has implications for how supporting evidence functions.

Your report serves three purposes in this new context:

1. It informs how the assessor understands the participant's verbal account. Assessors are not clinicians. When a participant describes their daily life, a well-framed allied health report gives the assessor the clinical context to understand what they are hearing. A report that uses functional language aligned with the 12 domains makes this translation direct and clear.

2. It documents what the assessment interview cannot capture. A three-hour interview is not enough to observe every domain of daily life. Fluctuating conditions, bad days, private support tasks, and things participants understate under interview pressure are all better captured in written clinical documentation.

3. It provides corroboration. When a participant's self-report is consistent with an independent clinical description of the same functional limitations, the assessor's confidence in the accuracy of the record is higher. This matters when the algorithm translates responses into funding.

Assessors do not need professional health registration under the 2026 legislation. NDIA-trained assessors may have widely varying health and disability backgrounds. A report that does the interpretive work clearly and directly — rather than requiring clinical expertise to decode — is more useful across the range of assessors your patient may encounter.

The NDIS I-CAN v6 evidence guide covers the full evidence picture from the participant's perspective and may be useful context for the reports you write.

---

The Core Shift: From Diagnosis Language to Functional Language

This is the single most important change in how to write NDIS reports for the I-CAN v6 context.

Diagnosis language tells the assessor what condition a person has. Functional language tells them what the person can and cannot do, how often, with what level of support, and with what consequences.

Here are six before-and-after examples across common conditions:

---

Depression and Psychosocial Disability

Diagnosis language: "Patient has severe depression."

Functional language: "Patient is unable to initiate personal care tasks — including showering, dressing, and preparing meals — on approximately 5 of 7 days per week. On these days, basic hygiene, nutrition, and medication management do not occur without external prompting or support from another person. The patient requires a minimum of one daily check-in from a support person to ensure basic health and safety tasks are completed. During acute episodes (occurring approximately 4–6 times per year), the patient requires crisis-level support for periods of 1–3 weeks."

---

Spinal Cord Injury

Diagnosis language: "Patient has T6 complete paraplegia."

Functional language: "Patient requires full physical assistance for all transfers between surfaces (bed, wheelchair, toilet, shower chair). Patient cannot independently perform any personal care tasks from below mid-chest level. Bowel and bladder management requires trained attendant care, taking approximately 90 minutes each morning and 30 minutes each evening. Patient uses a power wheelchair for all mobility and requires manual assistance for wheelchair propulsion on uneven surfaces. Maximum independent community participation is limited by the availability of attendant care and accessible transport."

---

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Diagnosis language: "Patient has autism spectrum disorder (level 2)."

Functional language: "Patient cannot independently navigate unfamiliar environments. All community participation requires a known, trusted support person. When routines are disrupted — including unexpected changes to plans, sensory environment changes, or communication from unfamiliar people — patient experiences severe dysregulation with a recovery period of 2–4 hours during which participation in any task is not possible. Patient communicates effectively in structured, familiar, low-sensory settings and requires significant communication support in other contexts."

---

Acquired Brain Injury

Diagnosis language: "Patient has acquired brain injury with executive dysfunction."

Functional language: "Patient cannot initiate tasks independently — including personal care, meal preparation, and household tasks — without external prompting. Patient cannot sequence multi-step activities without a written or verbal guide for each step. Meal preparation is not safe without supervision due to risk of forgetting active cooking or combining medications and food incorrectly. Patient requires support for all appointments: scheduling, transport, preparation, and follow-up. Memory aids are in use but not sufficient without daily support to ensure they are used correctly."

---

Multiple Sclerosis

Diagnosis language: "Patient has multiple sclerosis."

Functional language: "On high-fatigue days (occurring approximately 3 of 7 days per week on average, and more frequently during heat, illness, or periods of higher activity), patient cannot leave home and requires assistance with all personal care including showering, dressing, and meal preparation. On moderate days, patient can manage approximately 2–3 hours of activity before requiring a 3–4 hour rest period. Patient's functional capacity is highly variable and cannot be predicted reliably from an assessment conducted on a single day. The attached fatigue diary covers a 4-week period and provides a realistic picture of the range."

---

Intellectual Disability

Diagnosis language: "Patient has intellectual disability (mild)."

Functional language: "Patient cannot independently manage finances, medications, or medical appointments. Without supported decision-making, patient signs documents and makes purchases that are not in their best interest. Patient cannot safely use public transport to unfamiliar locations without a familiar support person. Patient manages routine domestic tasks with prompting but cannot initiate them independently. All significant life decisions require supported decision-making; patient has capacity to make decisions with appropriate support but not independently in most areas."

---

The 12 I-CAN v6 Domains: What Clinical Evidence Is Most Useful

The following maps each I-CAN v6 domain to the clinical information most relevant to an allied health report in that area.

Mobility Transfer capacity; walking distance and duration; carrying capacity; balance; use of mobility aids; transport access; fatigue after mobility tasks; safety risks.

Domestic Life Meal preparation capacity (including safety); cleaning and household maintenance; laundry; shopping; financial management; managing bills and correspondence.

Self Care Personal hygiene (showering, dental care, grooming); dressing; toileting and continence; skin care; wound management; eating and nutrition; medication management.

Community, Social and Civic Life Ability to access community settings independently; participation in social and recreational activities; civic participation; the supports required for community access; safety in community settings.

Communication Comprehension of spoken and written information; expression of needs and ideas; use of communication aids; communication in unfamiliar settings and with unfamiliar people; telephone and digital communication.

Learning and Applying Knowledge Capacity to learn new information; retaining and applying instructions; reading and writing functional capacity; following multi-step instructions; learning in formal and informal settings.

General Tasks and Demands Executive function — planning, initiating, organising; attention and concentration duration; managing multiple simultaneous tasks; adapting to change; managing a routine.

Life Long Learning Employment capacity — current employment, barriers to employment, what supports make employment possible; vocational training participation; educational participation; life skills acquisition.

Interpersonal Interactions and Relationships Capacity for and quality of relationships; social communication; family and support network relationships; formal relationship management (with providers, employers, government agencies).

Behaviours of Concern Behaviours that may cause harm to self or others; frequency, severity, and triggers; current management strategies; what support is required to keep the participant and others safe.

Mental and Emotional Health Mental health diagnosis and functional impact; frequency and duration of acute episodes; impact on daily functioning on typical days and during episodes; the supports that maintain stability.

Physical Health Chronic health conditions and their functional impact; pain (location, severity, frequency, impact on function); fatigue; medication requirements; medical interventions required; the support needed to manage physical health.

The full 12 I-CAN v6 domains are explained in detail in the ICANReady domain guide, which may be a useful reference when aligning your report to the framework.

---

What Assessors Actually Need from Your Report

An I-CAN v6 assessor — whether clinically trained or not — needs to understand the following from your report. Structure your writing to answer each of these:

What can this person not do independently? Be specific. Not "has difficulty with personal care" but "cannot shower without physical assistance; cannot dress the lower half of their body independently."

What support is currently provided? Name the support: a family carer, a paid support worker, a specific assistive technology. Note the frequency, duration, and tasks covered.

How long do supported tasks take? Time is funding. "Morning personal care with full attendant support takes 90 minutes" translates directly into funded support hours.

What are the consequences when support is unavailable? This is often the most powerful thing you can document. "When attendant care does not arrive, the patient does not shower, does not eat breakfast, does not take morning medication, and cannot leave for appointments" tells the assessor what is at stake.

How often and how much do needs vary? For fluctuating conditions, describe the realistic range — best days, typical days, bad days — and the approximate frequency of each. Do not report only the assessment-day presentation.

---

Common Errors That Reduce Report Usefulness

1. Listing diagnosis without functional impact A diagnosis label provides context but not functional information. Always follow the diagnosis statement with specific functional consequences.

2. Using "sometimes" or "occasionally" without frequency data "Sometimes requires assistance with personal care" means nothing to an assessor. "Requires assistance with personal care on approximately 5 of 7 days" is actionable information.

3. Describing "typical" performance without capturing bad days Many patients present well in clinical settings. If bad days are significantly worse than assessment-day presentation, document this explicitly and note how often they occur.

4. Omitting what happens when support is not available The support gap scenario — what the person's life looks like without current supports in place — is often the most important evidence in the report.

5. Reports more than two years old without an update Older reports carry less weight, particularly for progressive or fluctuating conditions. Even a brief update letter confirming the current functional picture significantly improves an older report's usefulness.

6. Generic clinic letters not written for the I-CAN v6 context A standard clinic summary — diagnosis, medications, treatment plan, next appointment — provides almost no useful functional information for an NDIS assessment. If you are writing for NDIS purposes, write for NDIS purposes.

---

Fluctuating and Progressive Conditions

For many of your patients, the most challenging aspect of assessment is that their functional capacity varies — sometimes dramatically — across days, seasons, and stages of their condition.

The I-CAN v6 assessment aims to capture typical functioning, not best-day or worst-day functioning. Your report should help the assessor understand what "typical" means for your patient.

Strategies for documenting fluctuating conditions:

• Provide a range: "On good days, patient manages X; on bad days, patient requires Y; bad days occur approximately Z times per week"
• Attach a diary: If your patient has kept a daily diary, referencing it (or attaching it as an appendix) provides pattern evidence that a single-session report cannot
• Distinguish domains: Fluctuation may affect some domains more than others; be specific about which domains are most variable
• Describe progression: For progressive conditions, note the trajectory — where the patient was 12 months ago, where they are now, where they are likely to be in 12–24 months. This informs plan duration and review timing.

---

Coordinating with Other Specialists

Many of your patients have multiple treating professionals — a GP, a specialist, an allied health team. The assessment will be informed by reports from all of them, and inconsistency between reports can create uncertainty for assessors.

If you know your patient is being assessed:

• Consider reaching out to the treating team (with the patient's consent) to discuss the functional picture and ensure reports are consistent
• If your report covers different domains from another provider's report, note this explicitly: "The functional impact on mobility and physical health is covered in the patient's physiotherapist's report; this report focuses on domestic life and self care"
• If there are clinical disagreements about diagnosis or severity, address this explicitly rather than leaving it for the assessor to interpret

---

What to Include in a Summary Letter

If writing a comprehensive report is not feasible — due to time constraints, limited clinical contact, or other factors — a targeted summary letter is more useful than no document.

A good summary letter for I-CAN v6 purposes includes:

• Your clinical relationship with the patient (how long, in what capacity)
• The patient's diagnosis and a brief description of its functional course
• The three to five most significant functional limitations with specific, measurable descriptions
• The domains these limitations primarily affect (use domain names explicitly)
• The current support in place for those limitations
• A statement that the letter is provided for NDIS assessment purposes and may be supplemented by your full report

A focused two-page letter using functional language is more useful than a comprehensive ten-page report written entirely in clinical language.

---

How to Help Your Patient Prepare

Your role does not end with writing a report. How you prepare your patient for the assessment itself significantly affects the outcome.

Tell your patient:

• That the assessment will cover 12 specific life domains — not just their primary condition
• That they should describe their worst typical days, not their best
• That time and frequency matter: encourage them to think in specifics ("twice a week," "90 minutes," "4 of 7 days")
• That a preparation document they write themselves, covering each domain in their own words, works alongside your report — not instead of it
• That they can have a support person with them during the assessment

ICANReady is designed to help participants build this structured preparation document domain by domain. Directing your patient to prepare their own account of their support needs alongside your clinical report produces a far stronger combined evidence base than either alone.

---

A Final Note

The I-CAN v6 assessment places more weight on evidence than the previous planning model, and the quality of allied health reports directly shapes how well participant needs are captured. The shift to algorithmic budget-setting means that what gets recorded in the assessment conversation — informed by your reports — has direct financial consequences.

Writing in functional language, organising your report around the 12 domains, describing the realistic range of your patient's functioning, and clearly documenting what happens when support is unavailable are not documentation burdens. They are the difference between a report that works for your patient and one that doesn't.

Try ICANReady free →

---

Sources

• Centre for Disability Studies, I-CAN v6 Framework, University of Sydney
• NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Act 2026, passed 19 August 2026
• National Disability Insurance Agency, NDIS Support Needs Assessment — Information for Allied Health Professionals (2026)
• Occupational Therapy Australia, NDIS Reporting Guide (updated 2026)
• Australian Psychological Society, NDIS Assessment Report Writing Standards (2026)
• Allied Health Professions Australia, Functional Reporting for NDIS Purposes — Guidance Note (2026)