Can you get free physiotherapy in Australia?
For an elderly parent, usually yes. Physiotherapy is clinical care under Support at Home, which carries no participant contribution at all. For someone on an NDIS plan it is generally funded from Improved Daily Living. Medicare covers a limited number of visits a year through a GP plan.
Three different doors, three different sets of rules, and most families only ever hear about the third.
Door one: Support at Home
The biggest one for anyone over 65. Under Support at Home, physiotherapy is classified as clinical care, and the Department of Health states that participants make “no contribution for clinical support services (such as nursing and physiotherapy)”.
It is not free of the budget — visits draw down her quarterly funding like any other service — but she pays nothing toward it, which is not true of cleaning or transport. The full explanation is here.
What it needs: an aged care assessment, and physiotherapy named in her support plan. It has to be in the plan to be funded, and it is rarely offered unless somebody asks.
Door two: the NDIS
For a participant under 65, physiotherapy generally sits in Improved Daily Living, a Capacity Building budget. Nothing is paid out of pocket, but every service has to tie to a goal written in the plan.
What it needs: a relevant goal, and a plan that is self-managed or plan-managed if you want to choose a provider who is not NDIS-registered.
Door three: Medicare, and its limits
A GP can put a Chronic Condition Management Plan in place, which lets a patient access up to five individual allied health services per calendar year. Physiotherapists are on the eligible list.
Two things to know. Five visits a year is not a rehabilitation program — it is a top-up, and it rebates part of a fee rather than covering it. And if a GP management plan or team care arrangement was put in place before 1 July 2025, it can only be used until 30 June 2027, after which a new plan is needed.
Which door is fastest?
Not the obvious one. Ordinary Support at Home funding is the slow queue, with standard priority currently estimated at seven to eight months. The Restorative Care Pathway is assessed separately, funds up to 16 weeks of intensive allied health, and is allocated immediately with no waitlist — which makes it the quickest route in for someone who has just come out of hospital or had a fall. The detail is here.
Medicare is fastest of all if she already has a GP plan, and the smallest.
Free does not mean interchangeable
Whichever door she comes through, she still chooses who walks in. Support at Home funds the service; it does not oblige her to take whoever the provider rosters that week. Worth asking before agreeing to anything: who is coming, and will it be the same person each visit. Progressing a program depends on somebody remembering what was hard last month.
What “free” does not cover
Gym or pool entry fees where a program uses them. Equipment, which is funded separately. And anything not named in the plan, which is the one that catches people out most often.
If you are not sure which applies to her, fees and funding lays the three out side by side, and a phone call sorts it in about a minute.