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how to make your funding work for you.

Scuba Therapy Should Be Accessible

Scuba Therapy delivers outcomes that other therapies often can't. The good news is that NDIS, motor accident insurance schemes and DVA can all fund your sessions — and we're here to help you navigate every step of the process.

NDIS

National Disability Insurance Scheme
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CTP & Lifetime Care

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DVA Funding

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NDIS

National Disability Insurance Scheme

Scuba Therapy is not a luxury — our clients describe it as vital. It improves lung function, reduces pain, builds strength, restores independence and delivers outcomes where other therapies have not.

The NDIS agrees: this is exactly the kind of innovative, life-changing support the scheme exists to fund.

NDIS Plans

Self Managed Plans

If you are self-managed, you have the most flexibility. Scuba Therapy can be funded to improve your lung function, build muscle strength, improve sleep and wellbeing, increase flexibility and reduce your reliance on carers — all documented outcomes from our sessions. If you need support building your case, we can connect you with a Physiotherapist or Exercise Physiologist who can formally outline how Scuba Therapy achieves these results.

Plan Managed Plans

Check with your plan manager that your goals allow for innovative community participation and individual skills development. Scuba Therapy sits clearly within these categories — you are learning a new skill, exercising in a therapeutic environment, and improving your daily living outcomes. We are happy to write a Letter of Support to help your plan manager approve funding for your sessions.

Relevant NDIS Categories

These are the best-fit NDIS categories for Scuba Therapy funding:

  • Improved Daily Living — Category 15 (under "Other" therapist classification)
  • Access Community Social & Recreation Activity
  • Innovative Community Participation
  • Individual Skills Development and Training

CODE: 04_104_0125_6_109_008_0116_6_309_009_0117_6_3

Codes sourced from NDIS Pricing Arrangements & Price Limits 2024–25 v1.3 (effective 1/10/2024)

Is Scuba Therapy Necessary & Reasonable?

The NDIS asks two questions. Here are the answers:

  • Necessary? Yes. Our clients move freely in the water in ways impossible on land. No other therapy has achieved the same results for many of them.
  • Reasonable? Absolutely. As strength and independence increase, the need for carers decreases — creating real, measurable cost savings for the NDIS over time.
  • Not yet registered? We are not yet a registered NDIS provider. Self-managed and plan-managed participants can still access our services — contact us and we will work through the options with you.

CTP Compulsory Third Party & Lifetime Care

Motor Accident Insurance
Funding your recovery.

If you were injured in a motor vehicle accident and are covered by a CTP scheme or Lifetime Care and Support Authority, Scuba Therapy can be funded as part of your ongoing rehabilitation — provided it meets the reasonable and necessary criteria. We make a compelling case.

The Four Criteria — Met and Exceeded

Lifetime Care assesses services against four criteria. Here is how Scuba Therapy measures up:

Benefit to you

Documented improvements in strength, pain reduction, lung capacity, sleep quality and reduced dependence on carers — often within the first few sessions.

Appropriate provider

Our instructors are experienced in adaptive and therapeutic aquatics with Working With Children and Police Check clearances.

Cost-effective

Faster improvement means fewer sessions and reduced long-term care costs. The return on investment is clear and measurable.

Injury-related

Scuba Therapy directly addresses mobility, muscle atrophy, respiratory function and neurological symptoms that arise from serious injury.

Why Scuba Therapy Works for Injury Recovery

The underwater environment creates a therapeutic combination that land-based rehabilitation simply cannot replicate:

  • Zero gravity on joints — full range of motion without pain
  • Water pressure supports the cardiovascular and lymphatic systems
  • Controlled breathing through the regulator rebuilds lung capacity
  • Resistance training in every direction simultaneously
  • Neurological stimulation that has shown results in paraplegic and spinal injury cases
  • Measurable reductions in chronic pain, often after just one session

How to Apply

Contact your case manager or rehabilitation coordinator and ask them to consider Scuba Therapy as part of your treatment plan. We can provide a detailed Letter of Support, outcomes data from existing clients, and connect your team with our instructors and supporting health professionals. We will support your application every step of the way.

DVA - Department of Veterans' Affairs

Return to life sooner

Veterans living with physical injuries, spinal cord damage, amputations or PTSD have found Scuba Therapy to be one of the most effective rehabilitation tools available. Research from Johns Hopkins University confirms what our clients experience firsthand: scuba diving delivers dramatic neurological and psychological improvements in veterans that other therapies haven't achieved.

What DVA Can Fund

DVA funding may cover Scuba Therapy as part of an approved rehabilitation and treatment plan for accepted conditions including spinal cord injuries, amputations, PTSD and musculoskeletal injuries. As with all DVA-funded treatments, sessions must be delivered by an appropriate provider and aligned to your treatment goals. We work directly with DVA-linked treating teams and can prepare supporting documentation to assist approval.

The Research Backs It Up

A study at Johns Hopkins University followed veterans with spinal cord injuries through a four-day scuba diving programme. Researchers reported:

  • Significant improvement in muscle movement
  • Massive reduction in PTSD symptoms
  • Increased sensitivity to light touch and pinprick sensation in the legs
  • Advances described as"dramatic"— suggesting a neurological pathway that has been overlooked

Source: Johns Hopkins University, USA

Return to Work Sooner

For veterans and injured workers navigating a return to employment, Scuba Therapy accelerates the physical and psychological recovery that makes work possible again. Stronger muscles, reduced pain, improved sleep, greater confidence and reduced anxiety all contribute to a faster, more sustainable return to working life. We work with your DVA case manager and treating GP to build the evidence base for your referral.
Real Results · Client Story

The Proof That Changed Everything.

25

Years as a paraplegic
before Scuba Therapy

1

Hour of Scuba Therapy
in the pool

3

Days completely
pain-free afterwards
"I've been a paraplegic for 25 years. In one hour of Scuba Therapy, I was out of pain for three days. And for the first time in 25 years — my bladder control returned. No other therapy in a quarter of a century has given me that."

— Andrew
Paraplegic client, The Scuba Gym

What Happened

Andrew has lived with paraplegia for 25 years. In that time, he has undergone every conventional therapy available — physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, pain management, exercise physiology. None of them gave him what a single one-hour Scuba Therapy session at The Scuba Gym delivered.

After just one session in our pool, Andrew was pain-free for three consecutive days. More remarkably — for the first time in 25 years — his bladder control returned. This is a function that medical professionals had long considered permanently lost.

Why This Matters

Andrew's outcome points to something the research at Johns Hopkins also identified: the underwater environment — the pressure, the breathing mechanics, the neurological stimulation of controlled buoyancy — appears to activate pathways in the nervous system that conventional surface therapies cannot reach. This isn't anecdote.

This is measurable, repeatable, documented client outcomes that are building an evidence base for Scuba Therapy as a genuine frontier in disability rehabilitation. Andrew's story is why we do what we do — and why NDIS, Lifetime Care and DVA funding for these sessions matters so deeply.

For NDIS planners, case managers and insurers

Andrew's outcome — pain relief lasting three days following a single one-hour session, and restoration of bladder control absent for 25 years — represents the kind of cost-effective, life-changing result that defines reasonable and necessary support. We welcome conversations with treating teams, plan managers and funding bodies. Contact us to discuss outcomes data or arrange an observation session.

Letter of Support

We can write a tailored Letter of Support for your NDIS plan manager, CTP insurer or DVA case manager explaining the therapeutic outcomes of Scuba Therapy for your specific situation.

Medical Clearance

All participants complete a medical form assessed by our Dive Doctor. Sessions take place in the pool to a maximum depth of 4 metres — safe for a wide range of conditions and abilities.

Not Sure Where to Start?

Call us. We'll walk through your situation, identify the most appropriate funding pathway, and help you make the case to whoever holds the purse strings. You shouldn't have to fight alone.

Let's get you
in the water.

Don't let funding complexity stop you from accessing therapy that could change your life. Talk to our team — we've helped many clients navigate the system and we'll help you too.
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Credentials

Working With Children Check #WWC0302390E. National Police Check URN:AU:09/02356. Minimum age for Scuba Therapy: 10 years. All sessions supervised by qualified instructors.