Is AI telling families
the right thing?

A national survey in the Medical Journal of Australia found that, of Australians who'd used ChatGPT for health questions in the first half of 2024, 61% had asked at least one higher-risk question, the kind that usually needs a professional's advice. That was more common among people born in countries where English isn't the main language, and among those who speak another language at home.

Care questions sit right beside health questions. A daughter in Wyong searching at 10pm might ask: 'what's the difference between a registered and unregistered NDIS provider', 'who does Support at Home in Tuggerah', 'how much does a support worker cost an hour'. Each of those fans out into several searches before the AI writes one answer.

Google calls it query fan-out, and its AI Mode has been available in Australia since October 2025. ChatGPT does something similar when it rewrites a question into targeted searches and may use location to find nearby businesses.

The single most important fact about an NDIS provider is whether it's registered, and for what. The NDIS Commission says agency-managed participants can only receive supports from a registered NDIS provider, while self-managed and plan-managed participants can use unregistered providers too.

Get that wrong and the cost lands on a participant. If an AI answer, or your own page, implies you're registered when you aren't, an agency-managed participant may book you and then find their plan can't pay. The Commission's Provider Register lists providers that are currently registered and those whose registration has been suspended or revoked, so describe your status in words that match what it shows.

If you're unregistered, say so plainly and say who can use you. It reads as honest, and it's the answer the family was looking for anyway.

Care rules have moved a lot. Support at Home replaced Home Care Packages on 1 November 2025. Support at Home price caps planned for 1 July 2026 were deferred indefinitely on 19 May 2026. Yet in early November 2026, My Aged Care's own Support at Home pricing changes page still described caps from 1 July 2026, months after they were deferred. Official pages can lag.

If an official page can lag, an AI answer built from it can too. That's an opening for providers: a short, dated page that says what's changed and what it means for your clients gives AI tools, and families, a current source to use.

The NDIS has its own moving parts. The NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Act 2026 passed Parliament on 19 August 2026, with new offences for providers offering kickbacks and inducements. Its changes start over several years, so check the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing's timeline before giving any date. The NDIS advertising rules page tracks what's known.

Fill in what's true for you today. It writes one plain description to use everywhere, and flags wording that would mislead.

AI answers draw on the pages they can find: your site, your Google Business Profile, government finders, directories and news. Google's guide says a Business Profile can help a business's services show in AI responses as well as in normal search results.

For Support at Home providers, standard prices have to be published on your website and in My Aged Care's Find a provider tool. Keep the two identical. A family comparing a Gosford provider's site with its Find a provider listing shouldn't see two different hourly rates.

For NDIS providers, keep your registration details, service area and contact details the same on your site, your Google profile and every directory you're on. And check your site lets AI search crawlers in: OpenAI says sites that block OAI-SearchBot won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers.

• One page per service, named the way plans and families name it.
• The suburbs and regions you cover, listed by name.
• Your registration status, in words that match the register.
• Capacity: taking new clients or not, with the date you last checked.
• For Support at Home: every standard price on a web page, not only in a PDF.
• A 'last updated' date on any page that explains rules.

The NDIA says it does not endorse or approve any products or services, and names 'NDIS approved', 'NDIS permitted' and '100% NDIS funded' as misleading. If your site says any of them, AI tools may repeat it, and a family will believe it. Remove them everywhere, including old blog posts and image descriptions.

'Covered by your plan' is the same trap. Whether something is funded depends on the participant's plan. Say what you offer, and that participants can check whether it fits their plan.

Health and disability are sensitive for the ad platforms too, which the ads page covers. For AI answers the test is simpler: publish only what you'd be happy to hear read back to a family, word for word.