Is NDIS exercise physiology GST free?

Not on the ATO's own worked example. A clinic session for a participant with a plan in effect, the support named in the plan and a written agreement in place still fails the fourth requirement, because behavioural and therapeutic supports sit in table 2 of the determination and are only covered there when the service is also covered by another determination, which for this support means a residential care setting. The same example names the two ways that session can still be GST free: a Medicare benefit payable for the service, or supply as part of GST free hospital treatment.

Does Medicare cover exercise physiology?

Item 10953 covers exercise physiology under a chronic condition management plan for at least 20 minutes, at a schedule fee of A$74.55, with A$63.40 paid at the 85 percent benefit. Whether a patient qualifies is a Medicare eligibility question for the referring practitioner. For GST it matters because a service for which a Medicare benefit is payable is a medical service, and medical services are GST free.

Can the same practitioner have taxable and GST free income in the same week?

Yes, and a chart of accounts has to allow for it. A Medicare item where a benefit is payable and a private session with no benefit payable are different supplies, so they sit on different revenue accounts at different tax rates. Splitting them at the account level is what lets a BAS be built from the ledger.

Are training courses and workshops GST free?

They are a different supply from a clinical session and are treated on their own terms, which is why every canonical template gives training its own revenue account at the GST on Income rate. The page on training and workshops carries that question rather than this one.

GST answers

Is exercise physiology GST-free?

Usually no. Exercise physiology is not one of the health services listed in the GST Act, so a session is taxable unless something else applies: a Medicare benefit is payable for the item, the session is part of GST free hospital treatment, or it meets all four NDIS requirements. The ATO's own clinic example, where no Medicare benefit is payable, is taxable.

Key facts

Why it is taxable by default: Exercise physiology is not one of the 21 health services listed in the GST Act, and a service cannot just be similar to one of them¹
Where a Medicare benefit is payable: A service for which a Medicare benefit is payable is a medical service, and medical services are GST free²
The Medicare item behind that path: Item 10953, exercise physiology under a chronic condition management plan of at least 20 minutes, at a schedule fee of A$74.55⁷
The NDIS test: Four requirements together: a plan in effect, the support named in the plan's statement of supports, a written agreement, and coverage by the NDIS supports determination³
The ATO's own clinic example: A clinic session for a participant with a plan and a written agreement, with no Medicare benefit payable, is still taxable, because that support is not covered by one of the three other determinations unless it is supplied in a residential care facility³
Who pays: An insurer, a compensation or third party scheme operator, or an Australian Government agency takes the treatment the same service supplied to the patient would carry⁴
What the canonical templates post: The plan managed template posts a non-listed NDIS support to 402 at GST on Income, and the other two templates reach their NDIS agency-managed default at GST Free Income⁵

Exercise physiology is not on the list

A health service that is not a medical service is GST free only when it is one of the services the GST Act lists, is performed by a recognised health professional in that listed service, and is generally accepted in that profession as necessary for appropriate treatment of the recipient. There are 21 listed services. Exercise physiology is not one of them, and the ATO is explicit that a service must be one of the listed services and cannot just be similar to one.

That is why the profession sits apart from the neighbours it shares a corridor with. Physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dietary services, psychology and speech pathology are all listed, so the same funding path can produce a GST free line for one practitioner and a taxable line for the exercise physiologist beside them. The full list, and what it means for a private consult, is on is allied health GST free. The ATO does set out a route by which an unlisted technique can be GST free as part of a listed health service, but it states those conditions for massage therapy, so this page leaves that reading open below.

What the default means on an invoice

Taxable by default means the fee carries GST, so a tax inclusive session price gives up one eleventh of itself, and the invoice line has to sit on a revenue account at the GST on Income rate rather than the GST free rate the rest of a clinic's clinical income often uses.

It also means one practice can hold both treatments at once. A practitioner can see a participant under an NDIS plan in the morning and a patient on a Medicare chronic condition management item in the afternoon, and the two sessions do not carry the same tax rate. RSM's list of the errors it sees in NDIS billing starts there: whole invoices treated as GST free when they mix services, and mixed invoices not split at all.

The path where a Medicare benefit is payable

The first path out of the default is the definition of a medical service. The ATO gives two limbs, and the first is a service for which a Medicare benefit is payable. Medical services are GST free, so where a Medicare benefit is payable for the exercise physiology item, the session is GST free on that basis and not on the listed services basis.

Plate 1Item 10953 as the Medicare Benefits Schedule published it, beside the tax rate the canonical templates give Medicare revenue.

The figures come from the schedule rather than from this page: the item pays A$74.55 as a schedule fee and A$63.40 at the 85 percent benefit a bulk billed claim collects, on rates effective 1 Jul 2026. Both are read once a year, which is why the strip carries the date it was read and the date the rates took effect.

The reverse also holds, and it is the trap in the profession. Where no Medicare benefit is payable for the item, this path is closed, whatever the service looked like clinically. The ATO's exercise physiology example turns on exactly that sentence.

The four requirements for an NDIS supply

The second path is s38-38, and it is a test with four limbs that all have to hold. Three of them are about the participant and the paperwork. The fourth is about the support itself, and it is the one that catches exercise physiology.

The participant has an NDIS plan in effect, approved by the agency.
The supply is of reasonable and necessary supports specified in the statement of supports in that plan, and supplies beyond a quantity the plan specifies fall outside it.
There is a written agreement between the provider and the participant or another person, identifying the participant and stating that the supply is of supports specified in the plan. It can be a combination of documents.
The supply is covered by one of the two tables in the GST free supply NDIS supports determination.

Table 1 lists supports that are GST free on their own. Table 2 lists supports that are GST free only where they are also covered by one of three other determinations. Behavioural and therapeutic supports, which is where exercise physiology falls, sit in table 2. What a written service agreement has to say covers the third limb on its own.

The ATO's own clinic example

The ATO's NDIS guidance carries a worked example headed as a supply of exercise physiology that is not GST free. A participant with a plan that specifies fortnightly exercise physiology attends a clinic, not a hospital. No Medicare benefit is payable. The first three requirements are met, including the written agreement.

Under Table 2, item 4 lists behavioural and therapeutic supports which includes exercise physiology, but this service is not covered by one of the 3 other determinations unless it is supplied in a residential care facility.³

So the setting decides it. The same support delivered in a residential care setting can reach the determination through the residential care determination, and the clinic session does not. The example then names the two ways the supply can still be GST free regardless of the NDIS: a Medicare benefit payable for the service, or supply as part of GST free hospital treatment.

This is the example the search results do not carry. The campaign coverage settles the headline correctly and stops there, and the ATO's own other health services page does not mention the profession at all.

Who pays does not settle it

The third path is s38-60, and it is often read backwards. Where a service is GST free supplied to the patient, it stays GST free when the provider contracts instead with an insurer, an operator of a statutory compensation or compulsory third party scheme, or an Australian Government agency. The test runs from the patient's own supply outwards, so a payer with a purchase order does not convert a taxable service into a GST free one. The parties can also agree not to treat the supplies as GST free, which is worth settling before an insurer contract is signed.

One published schedule may point the other way, and this page does not resolve it. A search result describes a veterans affairs schedule of fees for exercise physiologists as marking its items GST free, while the third party rule turns on the treatment the same service to the patient would carry. The schedule itself was not opened for this page, so how it marks its items is recorded in the open questions rather than stated here, and no figure from it is printed.

Two revenue accounts, not one

In the ledger the answer becomes a chart of accounts question, because a practice that bills exercise physiology needs somewhere for both treatments to land. The canonical templates show what happens when only one of them is spelled out. The plan managed template holds an explicit row for a non-listed NDIS support and posts it to 402 at GST on Income. The other two templates hold no row for that pair, so they fall back to their NDIS agency-managed default and post the same support at GST Free Income.

Plate 2The same support key as each canonical template posts it, read from the templates rather than typed onto this page.

That disagreement is the practical warning. A map that carries no non-listed category row will post an exercise physiology session at the GST free rate, because the funding source default was written for supports that are listed. The fix is a category row, not a new tax rate: one revenue account for the supports that meet the test and one for the supports that do not, so a BAS is built from the accounts rather than from memory. Training and workshop income takes an account of its own again, at the GST on Income rate in every canonical template. GST on training and workshops covers that supply.

Where an exercise physiology line can land, and what has to be true first¹²³⁴

Funding path	Treatment on the revenue line	What has to hold
Private patient, no Medicare item	Taxable	The profession is not a listed health service, so no other provision applies
Medicare chronic condition management item	GST free as a medical service	A Medicare benefit is payable for the item
NDIS participant, clinic session	Taxable on the ATO's own example	The support is in table 2 and the setting is not a residential care facility
NDIS participant, residential care setting	Can meet the test	All four requirements hold, including coverage through the residential care determination
Insurer, scheme operator or government agency	Follows the patient's own supply	The same service supplied to the patient would be GST free, and the parties have not agreed otherwise

The deposit side of a mixed week

A week that holds both treatments still settles as a handful of bank lines, and each one can cover sessions on either rate. The agency pays a batch, a health fund settles a day of claims, and the deposit says nothing about which sessions inside it carried GST.

The two legs are separate postings and stay that way. The clearing leg posts BAS excluded in every canonical template, because it holds a settlement the practice has already earned and posted as revenue. The tax rate question belongs to the revenue lines underneath it, which is where the treatment on this page is decided. How NDIS agency-managed payments land in Xero walks the deposit itself.

What Ledger Map does with it

Ledger Map holds one standing map for the practice, approved before anything syncs. An exercise physiology line resolves through that map to an account and a tax rate, and the map is where the non-listed category row lives, so the treatment is decided once rather than invoice by invoice.

Nothing here is a treatment the product chose. The account and the rate come from the canonical template the practice starts from, the template's own reason travels with the row, and a line the map cannot resolve becomes a question with the options laid out rather than a silent posting. Each deposit is then posted as one balanced document set, leaving one exact match in the bank feed for a person to accept. How it works shows the map and the approval step.

Questions

Which allied health professions are GST free?
The GST Act lists the services rather than the professions, and a service is GST free only where it is one of the listed services, performed by a recognised professional in that service, and accepted in that profession as necessary for appropriate treatment. Physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dietary services, psychology, speech pathology, podiatry, chiropractic, osteopathy, optometry, nursing and social work are on the list. Exercise physiology is not.
Is NDIS exercise physiology GST free?
Not on the ATO's own worked example. A clinic session for a participant with a plan in effect, the support named in the plan and a written agreement in place still fails the fourth requirement, because behavioural and therapeutic supports sit in table 2 of the determination and are only covered there when the service is also covered by another determination, which for this support means a residential care setting. The same example names the two ways that session can still be GST free: a Medicare benefit payable for the service, or supply as part of GST free hospital treatment.
Does Medicare cover exercise physiology?
Item 10953 covers exercise physiology under a chronic condition management plan for at least 20 minutes, at a schedule fee of A$74.55, with A$63.40 paid at the 85 percent benefit. Whether a patient qualifies is a Medicare eligibility question for the referring practitioner. For GST it matters because a service for which a Medicare benefit is payable is a medical service, and medical services are GST free.
Can the same practitioner have taxable and GST free income in the same week?
Yes, and a chart of accounts has to allow for it. A Medicare item where a benefit is payable and a private session with no benefit payable are different supplies, so they sit on different revenue accounts at different tax rates. Splitting them at the account level is what lets a BAS be built from the ledger.
Are training courses and workshops GST free?
They are a different supply from a clinical session and are treated on their own terms, which is why every canonical template gives training its own revenue account at the GST on Income rate. The page on training and workshops carries that question rather than this one.

Sources

Open questions

A search result describes the veterans affairs schedule of fees for exercise physiologists as marking its items GST free, which would sit awkwardly beside a third party rule that turns on the treatment the same service supplied to the patient would carry. The schedule itself was not opened for this page and the department's fee schedule pages are recorded as unverified, so how it marks its items is unconfirmed, the DVA position is left to the practice's own adviser, and no DVA figure appears above.
Whether exercise physiology can be supplied GST free as part of a listed health service is not settled here. The ATO sets those conditions out for massage therapy: the practitioner is a recognised professional in the listed service, and that profession accepts the technique as a standard component of treatment for it. One reading takes those conditions as general to any unlisted technique. The other reads them as written for massage therapy alone. The pages read for this answer do not decide between them.
Supervision, NDIS report writing and therapy assistant time are left open here. On one reading the ATO's assistant conditions fold an assistant's work into the recognised professional's own service, so the supervised time takes whatever that service carries. On the other, those conditions are written for a listed health service, and exercise physiology is not one, so they give an exercise physiology session nothing to attach to. The pages that own supervision, report writing and assistant time carry the question rather than this answer.
This page carries no NDIS price limit and no net revenue arithmetic at one. The rates pages hold that question.
The four ATO pages cited refuse automated fetches and were read through a signed-in browser on 3 Sep 2026. Each carries the last updated date it prints, and a reader checking the wording will need to open them the same way.

GST and health: other health services
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
GST and health: medical services
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
GST and health: National Disability Insurance Scheme
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 13 Jun 2024.
primary
GST and health: supply of services through a third party
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
NDIS provider, plan managed, the canonical template
Ledger Map. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026.
primary
Providing GST-free supplies to NDIS participants
RSM Australia. Retrieved 4 Sep 2026. Source updated 30 Jul 2026.
secondary
MBS item 10953, exercise physiology health service
MBS Online, Australian Government Department of Health. Retrieved 2 Sep 2026. Source updated 1 Jul 2026.
primary
DVA fee schedules for allied health providers
Department of Veterans Affairs. Retrieved 2 Sep 2026.
unverified

Review

Last reviewed 3 Sep 2026 by Shane

General information for Australian allied health practices, not tax advice. Confirm a treatment with your BAS agent or accountant before you post it.

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