How to Get Referrals From Support Coordinators

Why coordinators are the channel

For most NDIS services, support coordinators are the single biggest source of new participants. Their job is to help a participant put a plan into action, which means matching that person to providers who have capacity and suit their goals. A handful of steady relationships with coordinators in your region can keep a roster full without spending a dollar on ads.

The pool is large and still growing. The NDIA reported 717,001 participants as at 31 March 2025, up 3.5% in a single quarter. A meaningful share of those plans include support coordination funding, and every one of those coordinators is making provider decisions week to week. In our experience running referral campaigns for providers, the agencies that treat coordinators as a deliberate channel, rather than something that happens by luck, are the ones that stop worrying about vacancies.

Make yourself easy to refer

Coordinators are time-poor and risk-averse. They are putting their own reputation on the line with a participant every time they suggest a provider, so the work is to lower both their effort and their risk. Three things do most of the lifting.

• A clear one-page profile. Services, specialisations, regions served, current vacancies or availability, and one fast way to contact you. This is the document a coordinator forwards to a participant, so write it for that reader, not for you.
• A website that survives a 30-second check. Real photos, plain-English service descriptions, your registration status, and your service area. Coordinators screen you before they ever pick up the phone.
• Fast responses. The provider who replies first usually gets the referral. If an enquiry sits for two days, the participant has often already been placed elsewhere.

A simple outreach system

You do not need a CRM or a sales team. You need a repeatable loop that a busy provider can actually run.

1. Build the list. Identify the support coordinators and Local Area Coordinators operating in your catchment. The NDIS provider finder, local disability networks, and your existing participants’ plans are all starting points.
2. Send a useful intro. A short, professional message with your one-page profile and current availability. Lead with what you can take on right now, not a sales pitch.
3. Follow up. Most referrals land after the second or third contact, not the first. A light, regular cadence beats a single email that gets buried.
4. Keep them updated. When your availability changes, tell the coordinators you have already met. A two-line “we now have a Tuesday/Thursday vacancy in the Penrith area” is the kind of message a coordinator genuinely wants, because it solves a problem sitting in their inbox.

What to send, and when

The content matters less than the relevance. A coordinator deletes a generic “we offer quality supports” email in a second. They read a message that names a specific gap they can fill today.

The intro message should answer three questions a coordinator has before they read past the first line: what do you do, where do you do it, and can you take someone on now. Attach the one-pager, keep the email itself to a few sentences, and make the contact path obvious. After that, the useful triggers for getting back in touch are concrete: a new vacancy, a new service area, a new specialisation, or a new clinician joining the team. Avoid contacting purely to “stay top of mind”; coordinators can tell the difference between a useful update and noise, and noise gets you filtered.

Stay compliant

Referral relationships sit squarely inside the rules, and getting this wrong is one of the few marketing mistakes that can put your registration at risk. The NDIS Code of Conduct applies to every provider and worker delivering NDIS supports, registered or not, and it requires you to act with integrity, honesty and transparency, including being open about any conflict of interest.

In plain terms, three lines must not be crossed:

• No inducements. You cannot pay, gift, or otherwise reward a coordinator for sending you participants. The Commission treats recommendations made for a secondary gain, gift or financial incentive as a conflict of interest concern.
• No pressure. A referral has to reflect genuine suitability and the participant’s choice, never a provider leaning on a coordinator.
• Transparency about conflicts. Where a provider delivers both support coordination and other supports, the NDIA’s guidance on conflicts of interest expects them to offer participants genuine alternatives, keep referral decisions separate from service delivery, and ensure coordinators are not rewarded for steering participants to in-house services. The Tune Review went further, recommending that a participant’s support coordination provider should not be the provider of their other funded supports at all.

None of this is a constraint on good marketing. Being genuinely useful, responsive and clear is both the compliant path and the one that actually wins referrals. The providers who get into trouble are the ones who treat coordinators as a sales target to be bought, rather than a professional to be helped.

Mistakes that cost referrals

Patterns we see repeatedly when a provider’s coordinator channel underperforms:

• One email, then silence. A single introduction with no follow-up is the most common reason an otherwise good provider gets no referrals.
• Stale availability. If a coordinator refers to you twice and you are full both times, they stop trying. Tell them the moment a spot opens.
• A website that raises doubts. No real photos, no registration status, unclear service area. Every gap is a reason to pick someone else.
• Slow replies. The participant in front of a coordinator needs a provider this week, not next.
• Crossing the compliance line. Anything that looks like paying for referrals will eventually cost you the relationships and possibly your registration.