Growth and AI visibility for occupational therapy practices
Utilisation, not impressions.
Occupational therapy marketing that starts with the report pile, not the enquiry form. Go Forth Digital works with OT practices across Australia, in this order: hours back from functional capacity assessments, home modification reports and progress reports; then found when a parent, a support coordinator or an aged care assessor searches or asks an AI; then booked into the clinician with capacity. Every page checked against the Occupational Therapy Board's advertising guidelines.
Go Forth Digital is run by a founder with ten years in B2B sales and growth, who has co-owned a gym and carried its P&L, and spent five years building websites and systems for health and wellness businesses.
What keeps an occupational therapy practice owner up
A twelve-week waitlist, a functional capacity assessment due Friday, a home modification report at page eighteen, and a year that ended with no profit.
Occupational therapy is the one profession where full and unprofitable sit in the same practice. In OTA's 2025 survey of 600 OTs, 79% already had a waitlist, 52% had a wait of twelve weeks or more, and 55% made no profit in 2024-25 (Occupational Therapy Australia, 1 September 2025). Demand is not the problem. The NDIS price limit for occupational therapy has been $193.99 an hour since 1 July 2019 and stays there for 2026-27, with provider travel at half that (NDIA Pricing Schedule 2026-27), so every hour an OT spends formatting a report instead of seeing a client is an hour the practice cannot afford to lose.
The report load is the highest of any allied health profession. A complex home modification carries 15 to 20 funded assessment hours; a Category B minor modification 2 to 10 (NDIA home modifications guideline, 4 June 2025). Functional capacity assessments, NDIA-requested reports, plan reassessment reports and assistive technology prescriptions sit on top. The practices that stay open are the ones that know hours per report by clinician, claim the non-face-to-face items the schedule now lists, and keep the OT's time near the hour they can bill for it. Then, and only then, more referrals.
What that looks like for an OT practice
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Get your hours back
Functional capacity assessments, home modification reports, NDIA-requested reports and progress notes drafted from the OT's own de-identified assessment data and notes, reviewed and signed by the OT. Report hours claimed on the non-face-to-face and NDIA-requested report line items instead of absorbed. This comes first for an OT practice.
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Get found
Parents search "handwriting help" and "sensory", not "occupational therapist". Coordinators search for a registered OT with capacity who does FCAs. Aged care assessors need an OT who prescribes home modifications. Pages written in each referrer's language, and your practice in the answer when any of them asks Google or ChatGPT.
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Get booked
A referral form that captures NDIS number, plan dates, funding remaining, the report that is due and when, routed to the clinician with capacity. A waitlist that triages by urgency and report deadline rather than by date received, and tells the referrer where they stand.
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79%
of occupational therapists already have a waitlist; 52% have a wait of twelve weeks or more.
Occupational Therapy Australia 2025 NDIS Provider Survey, 600 OTs, 1 September 2025.
$193.99
NDIS price limit per hour for occupational therapy in 2026-27, the same figure as 1 July 2019.
NDIA Pricing Schedule 2026-27; freeze history per OTA, 25 June 2026.
What we do first to grow an occupational therapy practice
A report audit, before a single page. Hours per FCA, per home modification report and per progress report, by clinician, against what was claimed for them.
Most of a report is not clinical reasoning. It is assembling the assessment scores, the history from the last report, the quotes, the photos and the NDIA's required headings, then formatting and lodging it. We map which parts come from the assessment tool, which come from the prior report and which the OT types from scratch every time, then build the draft workflow so the OT starts from a de-identified draft rather than a blank page and signs the finished report. The 2026-27 schedule lists non-face-to-face work and NDIA-requested reports at the full $193.99, and therapy assistants at $56.16 and $86.79 an hour (NDIA Pricing Schedule 2026-27); the audit usually finds report hours nobody claimed and implementation hours a Level 2 assistant could carry.
Then the pages, one per referrer. A support coordinator page that states registration, each OT's capacity by month, which OTs do FCAs and home modification assessments, mobile area and report turnaround. A GP page that says how a chronic condition plan referral reaches you and that the letter goes back after the fifth session. A parent page in parent language: handwriting, sensory, toileting, school readiness, what the first session looks like, what it costs. An aged care page for assessors and Support at Home providers. Then intake, with a waitlist screener that asks for the plan end date and the report deadline, because those decide the order, not the date the email arrived.
Funding streams we work inside
OT has more funding doors than any other allied health profession, and each one wants a different report. Each needs its own page, its own intake question and its own follow-up.
- NDIS Improved Daily Living
- The largest stream for most practices. Capacity Building Daily Activities paid $5,964 million in the year to 30 June 2026, up from $5,622 million the year before (NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Appendices, Table D.26). The coordinator page states capacity and report turnaround; the service agreement names the report hours; intake checks the plan budget before the first visit; the NF and RR line items get claimed.
- Home modifications and assistive technology
- Under the NDIS, any OT can assess a Category A minor modification under $10,000; Category B and complex modifications need a home modification assessor, with 2 to 10 and 15 to 20 funded hours (NDIA, 4 June 2025). Under Support at Home, all home modifications require a prescription from an occupational therapist (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, October 2025). If an OT on the team holds the assessor qualification, the page says so in those words; assessors and coordinators search for it.
- Aged care Support at Home
- Occupational therapy sits under clinical supports, funded in full with no participant contribution, and the AT-HM Scheme puts OT prescription on the path to most equipment and modifications. Price caps were deferred in May 2026, so the fee is yours to set and publish. The referrer is the assessor or the Support at Home provider, not the older person, and the page is written for them.
- Medicare chronic condition plans and mental health
- Item 10958 pays a benefit of $63.40 for up to five allied health services a calendar year under a GP chronic condition management plan (MBS Online, fee updated 1 July 2026). Mental health OTs take Better Access referrals on top. The GP page states the gap; intake captures the referral date; the letter after the fifth session earns the next one.
- WorkCover, CTP and DVA
- Insurer-paid and assessment-heavy. WorkCover Queensland pays $137 for an initial and $108 for a subsequent consultation from 1 July 2026, with activities of daily living and specific OT assessments at $231 an hour (WorkCover Queensland table of costs). DVA pays flat consultation and report fees inside a treatment cycle. The page speaks to the rehabilitation coordinator; the assessment report draft is where the hours come back.
Who it suits, and who it does not
It suits OT practices that have a waitlist and no profit, and want the second fixed before the first gets longer.
It suits paediatric practices whose enquiries come from parents who do not know the word for what they need. It suits mobile and community practices where travel and reports eat the day. It suits practices adding an aged care or home modification line to lean less on the NDIS. It suits multidisciplinary practices where OT, speech and psychology share a waitlist and a front desk.
It does not suit a practice that wants more enquiries onto a twelve-week waitlist without changing throughput; we will decline that and show you the report audit instead. It does not suit a practice that pastes client files into a chatbot; the drafts we build start from de-identified data or they do not start. It does not suit anyone who wants "specialist paediatric OT" on the page; the Board's rule on that word is the same for OTs as for everyone else. And it does not suit an unregistered provider wanting NDIA-managed participants; the NDIA will not pay you for them, and registration comes first. For what the wider market charges, read what allied health marketing costs in Australia.
Frequently asked questions
We have a twelve-week waitlist. Why would we spend anything on marketing?
You would not, yet. A waitlist is not demand you can bill; it is demand you are turning away slowly. Half of Australian OT practices have one that long, and more than half of them made no profit last year (OTA, 1 September 2025), which tells you the waitlist and the margin have the same cause: clinician hours going to work nobody claims. So the first project is throughput. Hours per report by clinician, a draft workflow that gives the OT back the formatting and assembly, the NF and RR line items claimed, a Level 2 assistant carrying implementation sessions at $86.79 an hour. When the waitlist drops to a length coordinators will accept, the pages and the referral form matter, because a coordinator who was told twelve weeks in March has not called since. We tell you which stage you are at in the first conversation.
Can AI write our functional capacity assessments and NDIS reports?
It can draft them. It cannot sign them, and it must never see a name. Ahpra's guidance on AI in healthcare puts responsibility for the accuracy of any AI-assisted record on the practitioner, and asks that clients be told and consent to any recording (Ahpra, 22 August 2024). So the workflow is: de-identified assessment scores and notes go in, a structured draft under the NDIA's headings comes out, the OT reads, corrects and adds the clinical reasoning, and the OT signs. The NDIA's plan reassessment report guidance says what a report must show, not how long it must be, and its new way of planning from April 2027 is meant to reduce the reports providers write, not remove them (NDIA, 26 August 2026). Until then the FCA and the home modification report are yours, and a draft that saves two hours on each is the difference between a profit and none.
How do we get more referrals from support coordinators and plan managers?
Answer their three questions on the page and reply with a start date the same day. A coordinator placing a participant checks whether you are registered, whether an OT has capacity, and how long the last report took. The NDIA sends them to the Provider Finder, which lists registered providers only (NDIA, 10 June 2026), so a registered practice with those three things stated is already ahead of most. Add which OTs do FCAs, home modification assessments and AT prescriptions, because coordinators are usually placing a participant who needs one of those, and a referral form that asks for plan dates, funding remaining and the report deadline. Then the report arrives on time, which is the only thing that keeps you on a coordinator's short list.
How do we get paediatric clients when parents do not search for an occupational therapist?
Write the pages in the words parents use, and let the AI answers do the translating. A parent types "my four year old cannot hold a pencil" or asks ChatGPT about a child who covers their ears at the shops. Those are OT presentations, and a page titled "Handwriting and fine motor skills" with what the first session involves, the fee and the wait is what the search engine and the AI both return. The demand is not going away: 4.3% of Australian children aged five to fourteen are autistic, up from 3.2% in 2018 (ABS, October 2024). What changes is the funding door. Thriving Kids begins phasing in from 1 October 2026 for children eight and under with developmental delay or autism and low to moderate support needs (NDIA, 5 February 2026), so the paediatric page needs to say plainly which children you see under a plan, which under Medicare, and which privately. Paediatricians, early childhood partners and schools read that page too.
Should we add aged care and home modifications to rely less on the NDIS?
If an OT on the team can hold the assessor qualification, yes, and the page is most of the work. Under Support at Home, occupational therapy is a clinical support funded in full, and every home modification needs an OT's prescription (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, October 2025). Under the NDIS, Category B and complex modifications need a home modification assessor and carry funded hours (NDIA, 4 June 2025). WorkCover Queensland pays $231 an hour for activities of daily living assessments (WorkCover Queensland, 1 July 2026). None of those referrers is the client. They are assessors, Support at Home providers, coordinators and rehabilitation coordinators, and each needs a page that says the qualification, the area, the turnaround and how to refer. Build those and the practice has three doors instead of one.
What does it cost for an occupational therapy practice?
Pricing is quote-based and set in ranges, all ex GST: one-off projects from $1,500 to $10,000, ongoing work on one service from $800 to $6,500 a month, and full-service retainers from $3,000 to $8,000 a month, on a three-month initial term then rolling. Work it from your own numbers: an OT hour is $193.99, so a $1,500 a month retainer is under eight claimable hours. If the draft workflow gives one OT back two hours per FCA and the practice claims the report hours it was writing for free, the retainer is covered before the referral pages go live. If your numbers do not say that, we say so in the first conversation and you keep them. Tell us what you need and we will quote it in writing. Our article on what allied health marketing costs in Australia sets out what moves a quote up or down.
Tell us what you need
You know your business. We know how to get it found and booked. Tell us what you need help with, we’ll find what’s in the way and clear it, so you can go forth.
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