If you own an allied-health clinic, 1 July 2026 is not a quiet rollover this year. Two things land on the same Wednesday, and they pull in opposite directions.
On the cost side, the Fair Work Commission’s Annual Wage Review delivers a 4.75% increase to award and minimum wages, taking effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026 (Fair Work Ombudsman). On the revenue side, the new NDIS Pricing Schedule holds most allied-health therapy rates flat at $193.99 per hour — physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, podiatry, social work and audiology all unchanged (Conway Consulting Group).
Higher wages. The same ceiling on what you can bill. That is a margin squeeze, and it arrives whether or not you’ve planned for it.
The two changes, side by side
| What changed from 1 July 2026 | Direction | |
|---|---|---|
| Wages (Health Professionals & Support Services Award) | +4.75% award increase; national minimum now ~$26.44/hr | Costs ↑ |
| NDIS therapy rate (most disciplines) | Frozen at $193.99/hr — a real-terms cut after inflation | Revenue flat |
| NDIS psychology / behaviour support | $232.99 → $252.99/hr (+$20) | Revenue ↑ |
| NDIS dietetics / exercise physiology | $178.99 and $161.99 — both reduced | Revenue ↓ |
| NDIS claim structure | Old claim types replaced by separate item numbers for travel, non-face-to-face, reports and telehealth | More admin |
Note the asymmetry. A frozen rate is not a neutral outcome — with a 4.75% wage rise behind it, $193.99 in July 2026 buys less practitioner time than $193.99 did in July 2025. For physio, OT, speech and podiatry caseloads, that is the headline story.
The new NDIS structure also splits each discipline into six line items — direct service, cancellations, non-face-to-face work, provider travel (at 50% of the hourly rate), NDIA-requested reports and telehealth (Conway Consulting Group). The temptation will be to recover lost margin by billing more non-face-to-face time. Conway’s analysis is blunt that this is exactly what the NDIA is now scrutinising — and recommends improving utilisation and operating models instead of leaning on ancillary charges.
Why capacity is the lever you actually control
When your hourly rate is capped by a funder and your wage bill rises, three levers remain:
- Raise prices — not available on NDIS therapy line items, and limited on Medicare and DVA.
- Cut costs — but your largest cost is the clinical wages that just went up by award.
- Use the hours you’re already paying for — this is the one fully in your hands.
That third lever is capacity utilisation: the share of your practitioners’ available, paid clinical hours that actually convert into billed appointments. It’s the difference between a physio rostered for 30 client hours who bills 30, and one who bills 23 because of gaps, no-shows and an un-rebooked diary.
Here’s why it matters more than the rate freeze. If you’re paying for the hour either way, an empty slot costs you the full wage and returns nothing. Industry estimates put the cost of a single missed appointment at around $200, and a clinic running a 10% no-show rate can bleed well into six or seven figures a year (CertifyHealth). A 4.75% wage rise on a 70%-utilised diary hurts far more than the same rise on a 90%-utilised one — because in the first case you’re absorbing the increase across fewer billed hours.
The three numbers worth watching this quarter
You don’t need a finance degree to defend your margin through this change — you need three figures in front of you each week:
| Metric | What it tells you | A practical target to chase |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity utilisation | % of paid clinical hours that are billed | Lift it before you do anything else |
| No-show + late-cancel rate | The hours you paid for but lost | Single digits, supported by reminders + waitlist |
| Rebooking rate | % of patients leaving with their next appointment booked | The cheapest slot to fill is the one booked at the desk |
The order matters. A U.S. study found automated reminders alone dropped no-shows from 38.1% to 23.5% (CertifyHealth) — but reminders only protect appointments that already exist. Closing the rebooking gap at the front desk, and filling cancellations from a waitlist, recovers the hours reminders never touch. As one allied-health business commentator puts it, rebooking and cancellation rates are the metrics owners must track (Cliniscribe).
What to do before 1 July
- Know your baseline. Pull your current utilisation, no-show and rebooking numbers for the last quarter. You can’t defend a number you’ve never measured.
- Map your funding mix. If you’re psychology-heavy, the +$20/hr rise softens the wage increase. If you’re physio, OT, speech or podiatry, the freeze means utilisation is doing the heavy lifting — plan accordingly.
- Tighten the diary, not the timesheet. Recovering two billed hours per practitioner per week from gaps and no-shows will out-earn any non-face-to-face charging strategy — and won’t put you in the NDIA’s sights.
The clinics that come through this calmly won’t be the ones who found a clever billing workaround. They’ll be the ones who already knew their utilisation number on 30 June — and watched it every week after.
Kookaburra Health reads your Cliniko or Halaxy data and turns it into exactly these numbers — utilisation, no-shows and rebooking — in plain English, so the lever you actually control is the one you can see.
Sources
- NDIS APR 2026-27: What It Means for Allied Health Providers — Conway Consulting Group
- Annual Wage Review 2026 — Fair Work Ombudsman
- FWC announces increase in national minimum and award wages — Holding Redlich
- How to Reduce Patient No-Shows in 2026: 15 Proven Strategies — CertifyHealth
- Allied Health Business: The Key Metric You Must Track — Cliniscribe