Disability Support Pension — the 20 points, and why they must sit on one table

People conflate these two constantly, so start with the distinction that saves the most wasted effort.

The NDIS funds supports and services. The Disability Support Pension pays you an income. They are run by different agencies, they use different tests, and being accepted by one tells you nothing about the other. Someone can be an NDIS participant and be refused the DSP. Someone can be on the DSP with no NDIS plan at all. If it is money to live on that you need, this page — not the NDIS page — is the one that matters.

Two doors: manifest rules and general rules

Services Australia tests medical eligibility in two stages. First, the manifest medical rules, which are a short list of situations that settle the question immediately. A condition meets them if you are permanently blind, need nursing home level care, have a terminal illness with an average life expectancy of less than 2 years, have an intellectual disability with an IQ of less than 70, have category 4 HIV/AIDS, or receive a Department of Veterans’ Affairs Disability Compensation Payment at the Special Rate.

Parkinson’s is not on that list and will not usually put you on it. So for almost everyone reading this, the route is the second door: the general medical rules. All five have to be met:

The first is easy for Parkinson’s — it is a progressive condition and nobody argues about the two years. The rest are where claims are won and lost, and the order in which you tackle them is not the order they are printed in.

“Reasonably treated and stabilised” — the timing trap

This is the requirement that most often surprises someone recently diagnosed, because it can make an earlier claim weaker than a later one.

Services Australia will not assess you under the general rules at all unless your condition is diagnosed, reasonably treated and stabilised. To decide whether it is reasonably treated, they check what treatment you have had, what you are on now, “and if any further treatment is planned for you.” The horizon is stated plainly: “We consider the next 2 years from when you claim.” The stabilised test uses the same window — whether your ability to work “will get better or stay the same with more treatment or rehabilitation.”

Now apply that to a Parkinson’s timeline. In the first year after diagnosis, levodopa is often still being titrated and the response is still improving. If deep brain stimulationA surgical treatment in which electrodes are implanted in the brain and connected to a pacemaker-like device, used to reduce tremor, stiffness and motor fluctuations.Learn more or an infusion therapy is on the table for the next couple of years, that is planned further treatment inside the assessment window.

One change here went in your favour. Before 1 April 2023 the rule required a condition to be “fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised.” From 1 April 2023 the wording is “diagnosed, reasonably treated and stabilised.” If you were knocked back years ago on the old wording, the test you would face today is not the same test.

The 20 points, and the part almost nobody explains

Impairment is scored using the Department of Social Services Impairment Tables, which are law — the current instrument is the Social Security (Tables for the Assessment of Work-related Impairment for Disability Support Pension) Determination 2023. Which version applies depends on your claim date: the 2023 Tables for claims lodged on or after 1 April 2023, the 2011 Tables for earlier ones.

You need 20 points. But there are two different ways to have 20 points, and they lead to very different journeys:

Services Australia’s own examples make it concrete. Kate is rated 30 points from a single table, so “Kate doesn’t need to do a POS.” Mike is rated 10 points on one table and 10 on another — his total is 20 “but less than 20 points on a single Impairment Table,” so “Mike needs to participate in a POS.”

That is not a reason to overstate anything. It is a reason to make sure the table where your impairment is genuinely worst is documented in full, by the right specialist, rather than leaving your evidence thinly spread. Which domain that is differs from person to person, and your neurologist and allied health team are the people who can say.

What a Program of Support actually requires

If the POS rules apply to you, this is what you have to show. A POS is a programme that “helps people with disability to prepare for, find and keep a job,” and to satisfy the requirement in the 3 years before you claim you must either participate for at least 18 months or complete the programme if it went for less than 18 months.

Two mitigations are worth knowing. If you are already on an income support payment such as JobSeeker Payment, Services Australia assesses what you have done towards your mutual obligation or participation requirements and checks whether that meets the POS requirement — so time already served may count. And there is an explicit escape clause: “Your medical condition or disability may stop you from improving your ability to work by staying in a POS. In this case, a shorter period may count.”

Eighteen months is a long time to discover you needed it. If you are in the years before you expect to stop work, this is the paragraph to act on early.

The evidence, and the one specialist requirement that catches people

For the general rules, Services Australia accepts a broad range: medical history records or reports, specialist medical reports, psychologist reports, medical imaging reports, physical examination reports, hospital or outpatient records including details of operations, compensation and rehabilitation reports, and “other evidence such as physiotherapy or audiology reports.”

But some tables have a specialist gate. The one that matters most in Parkinson’s is mental health. To be assessed against Table 5, Services Australia requires evidence showing either that a psychiatrist diagnosed the condition, or that a registered or clinical psychologist supports your treating doctor’s diagnosis. A GP letter describing depression will not open that table on its own — and for a lot of people with Parkinson’s, mental health is where a meaningful share of the points would come from.

Services Australia publishes two checklists that are worth downloading before you write anything: the Disability Support Pension Medical Evidence Checklist (form SA473) for you, and a Medical Evidence Checklist for treating health professionals (form SA478) for your care team.

What the DSP pays

For someone 21 or older, the maximum rates published by Services Australia in August 2026 are:

These are maximums. Your own rate depends on your and your partner’s income and assets. Services Australia updates the rates on 20 March and 20 September each year for people 21 and older, so if you are reading this in another quarter, check the current figure rather than trusting the table above.

There is also a tax wrinkle worth knowing: the DSP is not taxable while you are under Age Pension age, but Services Australia notes that “Disability Support Pension if you’re Age Pension age is a taxable Centrelink payment.”

Age and residence — the two rules that need no assessor

You must be at least 15 years and 9 months old and under Age Pension age when you claim. There is no discretion in that upper limit. If Parkinson’s is diagnosed after you have reached Age Pension age, the DSP is closed and the Age Pension is the relevant payment instead.

This creates a squeeze that people in their sixties feel from both sides, because the NDIS also shuts at 65. Late in your working life, the order is: check the NDIS age limit first, because it bites earlier.

You also have to meet residence rules and the income and assets tests, both of which apply before any medical question is looked at.

What the pension quietly comes with

The payment is not the whole value. DSP recipients get a Pensioner Concession Card, and that card is what drops a PBS prescription from $25.00 to $7.70 and your PBS Safety Net threshold from $1,748.20 to $277.20 — the arithmetic is in the PBS and your Parkinson’s medicines. Services Australia also has a rule allowing some people to keep the Pensioner Concession Card if their DSP stops, which is worth asking about rather than assuming.

If you are refused

A refusal is not the end of the process, and it is not the end of income support either.

Ask for a review. The decision can be reviewed, and a claim refused on “not yet stabilised” grounds is a different claim in two years’ time when the treatment picture has settled.

Look at the other payments. Services Australia points to JobSeeker Payment for people between 22 and Age Pension age who are “sick or injured and can’t do your usual work or study for a short time.” For the person caring for you, Carer Payment and Carer Allowance are separate entitlements that do not depend on your DSP being approved.

If this applies to you

This page is not medical, legal or financial advice, and nothing here decides your claim. Rules, forms and rates were checked against Services Australia pages in August 2026. DSP rates are indexed on 20 March and 20 September each year, so confirm the current amount with Services Australia before relying on the figures above.