Medium Term Accommodation NDIS: The 90-Day Stay

Medium term accommodation, known in the scheme as MTA, funds a place to stay for a participant whose home is not ready yet. The period is bounded: the pricing arrangements state it as up to 90 days. MTA is a bridge, not a destination, and it is funded as such.

The line is frequently confused with two of its neighbours: short term accommodation and supported independent living. The distinctions matter, because each is requested, funded and ended differently, and an application for one is not an application for another.

1. What MTA is for

MTA covers the gap between a participant being ready to move and their home being ready for them. The home may be waiting on modifications, on equipment, on a tenancy to begin, or on support arrangements to be settled. During the gap, the participant needs somewhere safe to stay, with the assistance their plan provides.

The test for MTA is the state of the home. It is not a holiday, and it is not a substitute for ongoing living arrangements; those purposes belong to other funding lines, and the plan review is where the distinction is kept sharp.

2. What the stay includes

A stay under MTA includes the accommodation itself and the support delivered during it. How much assistance is provided depends on the participant’s needs, and the arrangement should describe it plainly rather than leaving it to be discovered on arrival. The aim is that the stay resembles the participant’s ordinary life in a different setting, not a clinical admission, and it should be run to that standard.

3. The 90-day rule, and what happens at the end

MTA is funded for up to 90 days while the home is being made ready, and the arrangements set out how additional time is handled if the work runs late. The number is a limit rather than a target, and the practical work is planning the exit from the first week of the stay.

Transition planning starts immediately. That means a written answer to three questions: what is being built, bought or signed, who is responsible for each item, and what date the participant expects to move. Where the home is not ready within the period, the answer is a review of the plan and the arrangement, conducted with the support coordinator, rather than an assumption that the stay simply continues.

4. Who coordinates the stay

The support coordinator drives the arrangement where one is funded, and the accommodation provider delivers it. Around them, the participant’s therapies continue rather than pause. An occupational therapist assesses what the home needs so the modifications are built for the right person. A physiotherapist or speech pathologist works on the skills the participant wants to carry into the new home. A psychologist or behaviour support practitioner maintains continuity, and nursing input is arranged where health needs require it.

The point of the team is that the assessments inform the home rather than merely filling the file. A stay that runs its full length while nobody documents what the participant needs is a stay that ends with the same gap it began with.

5. How the funding is requested

MTA is requested through the plan. Where the support coordinator is in place, the request runs through them; where it is not already funded, it is raised at a plan review. The evidence that carries weight is concrete: what the home lacks, what is under way to fix it, and the timeline the participant is working to. Where an occupational therapy assessment recommends modifications, that assessment is the backbone of the request.

The argument is straightforward when the facts are: a participant is ready to move, and the home is weeks or months from being ready for them. The request should state both.

6. Where it sits beside the other supports

Three funding lines answer three different questions. Short term accommodation funds a short break, commonly for respite. MTA funds a home that is not yet ready. Supported independent living funds where a participant lives once it is. A stay under one does not create an entitlement to another, and how short term accommodation works and what changes when a participant starts SIL are covered separately.

7. What goes wrong, and the fix for each

• The stay drifts past its usefulness. Fix: bring the transition date forward in writing and ask the coordinator to review the arrangement.
• The provider and the participant do not fit. Fix: raise it with the provider first, then the coordinator, and use the Commission’s complaints pathway where it is not resolved.
• The therapies stop during the stay. Fix: a stay is not a pause in a plan. Ask for the scheduled sessions to continue and for the notes to follow the participant.
• The paperwork goes missing. Fix: keep copies of the offers, approvals and dates. An arrangement that is documented is one that can be reviewed.

Where MTA sits in the plan

MTA answers a specific question, and it works best when everyone treats it that way. Put the request in writing, keep the dates in view from the first week, and treat the exit as part of the arrangement rather than a surprise at the end of it. The stay is meant to end. Everything above is what makes it end on schedule, in the right home, with the supports already in place.

Sources: the NDIS (ndis.gov.au) publishes the current rules and pricing arrangements for medium term accommodation, including the 90-day period and how it is reviewed; the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (ndiscommission.gov.au) covers provider obligations and the complaints pathway.