Health Minister Mark Butler is expected to unveil sweeping reforms to the $50 billion program on Wednesday, which are likely to include changes to who is eligible for support and tougher registration requirements for providers.
But as the government declared it would be negligent to allow the NDIS to continue growing at abound 10 per cent a year, disability advocates have warned cuts to services would leave participants worse off.
"Our community is scared and we want a surety that things are going to be OK," People With Disability Australia president Jeramy Hope told AAP.
He urged the government to focus on making the scheme more efficient by reducing bureaucracy, rather than cutting eligibility to save money.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said while she understood the concerns of the disability community, the long-term viability of the NDIS needed to be addressed.
"I get that the disability community will be feeling a lot of this pressure," she told reporters in Parliament House on Tuesday.
"But we have a lot of pressure to make sure this scheme actually is sustainable.
"We're finding an extra $35 billion than what was originally intended a year - it's almost like we would be negligent if we just pretended that was OK," Senator Gallagher said.
On Tuesday, Mr Butler and Treasurer Jim Chalmers briefed state and territory officials, who are reluctant to agree to any changes which would require them to pay more.
"We can't have a situation where people are knocked off the NDIS and then the state provides the service, because it's still coming out of the same pockets of New South Wales taxpayers," NSW Premier Chris Minns told reporters in Sydney.
National Disability Services chief executive Michael Perusco backed the government's push for change, warning the scheme had strayed far beyond its original purpose of supporting people with a lifelong, significant disability.
He also called for mandatory registration of all providers to make the scheme more transparent and accountable.
"At the moment, we've got the situation where only one out of 20 providers are registered. There isn't visibility of those other 19 providers, and that has to change," Mr Perusco said.
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