What Does an Occupational Therapy Assistant Do?
At Wellwise OT, some clients work with both their Occupational Therapist (OT) and an Occupational Therapy Assistant (OTA) as part of their care team.
Who is an OTA?
An OTA works under the supervision and delegation of a registered, AHPRA-accredited Occupational Therapist to help implement parts of your therapy plan. The OT remains the clinically accountable practitioner overseeing your care.
How can an OTA help me?
Supporting you to practise skills and strategies between OT sessions
Helping implement home programs, routines, or sensory/regulation strategies
Assisting with community access, daily living tasks, or skill-building activities
Providing more frequent, consistent contact to help momentum between reviews
Monitoring and feeding back your progress to your OT, who adjusts your plan accordingly
What stays with your OT
Your OT remains responsible for all assessment, clinical reasoning, goal-setting and treatment planning. The OTA works alongside them as part of a collaborative team — think of it as more hands-on support, without losing the clinical oversight guiding your care.
Is this right for me?
Not every client needs or wants OTA involvement, and that's completely okay — it's simply another option to support your therapy goals, particularly where more frequent contact could help you build momentum.
Ready to find out more?
Ask your OT whether working with our OT Assistant could support your goals, or get in touch with our team today to have a chat.
What does this cost under my NDIS plan?
OTA support is billed under the NDIS Therapy Assistant line item — a separate, lower rate than the Occupational Therapist rate. Under the 2026–27 NDIS Pricing Schedule:
Occupational Therapist: $193.99/hour
Therapy Assistant (Level 1): $56.16/hour
Therapy Assistant (Level 2): $86.79/hour
Getting started — shadow/joint sessions: When you first begin working with our OTA, your OT attends alongside them to hand over your goals, routines and communication style in person. These joint sessions are billed at the full OT rate plus the Level 1 Therapy Assistant rate ($193.99 + $56.16/hour), since both practitioners are actively working with you during this time. This varies client to client, but generally involves 1–2 sessions.
While this means a higher hourly cost during the initial handover period, it's a short-term investment with a longer-term payoff: once your OTA is confidently working with you, ongoing sessions shift to the Therapy Assistant rate alone — a fraction of the OT rate. This means your plan can fund more frequent, regular support over the life of your plan, rather than fewer, more expensive OT-only sessions.
Your plan manager or support coordinator can help you understand how this fits your specific plan and budget (usually Capacity Building – Improved Daily Living).