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Choosing a home care provider

Choosing a home care provider

Once you or your loved one has applied for a Home Care package through My Aged Care, you need to think about who will provide home care help.

Our current home care system is a consumer directed care model, which means you or your loved one can decide who provides your services and how you receive them.

Here we look at what to consider when researching a home care package provider and what sort of questions you should ask them before you sign on.

What do you need from your provider?

When you or your loved one went through your assessment with My Aged Care, you would have talked about their health and lifestyle, any concerns you both have and how they’re going with completing daily activities.

Based on you or your loved one’s current situation, you might need services including:

  • personal care like showering or toileting
  • cleaning or gardening help
  • allied services such as physiotherapy or occupational therapy
  • nursing help like wound or catheter care
  • companionship
  • transport services

Create a list of what services you need the provider to offer. You might have other considerations, including a carer who speaks a language other than English or is familiar with your culture or religion.

Once you’ve got a clear picture of what you want from a home care package provider, it will be easier to compare providers.

Compare home care package providers

There are a few ways to compare home care package providers. Firstly, you can go to the My Aged Care website and compare providers in your area.

You could compare things like:

  • Pricing for each service, including nursing fees, personal care and domestic support
  • Fees and charges including basic daily fees, exit fees and package management fees
  • Ratings and reviews of each home care provider
  • What specialist services each provider can offer
  • What culture, background and languages the provider can support

You can also make sure the providers you’re consider adhere to the Aged Care Quality Standards. You can check the ‘non-compliance checker’ on My Aged Care to make sure any home care package provider you’re looking at is compliant in the quality standards.

Get in touch with home care providers

Once you’ve got a shortlist of providers in your area, it’s important to get in touch with them to talk about the services you or your loved one needs. Set up a time for a meeting, either over the phone, on zoom or in person.

When you have your meeting, you might like to have a list of questions prepared. Some questions you or your loved one might like to ask include:

  • Will there be a dedicated care coordinator who I can speak to each time I call?
  • Can I choose the person who will provide me with care/support?
  • How do you choose the person who will care for me?
  • Will I see the same carers each day/week?
  • Do you have your own care workers or are they subcontractors?
  • What happens if I don’t like the person who is caring for me?
  • What qualifications do your carers have?
  • How often will my care plan be reviewed?
  • How are you different from other service providers?
  • Do you offer private and government funded services?
  • Do you offer self-managed and care managed services? What is the difference?
  • What are the costs involved?
  • What does a package budget look like?
  • Do you have any past or present sanctions and how have you dealt with them?
  • Will you keep me updated on unspent funds so I can spend my allocated budget each year?
  • You might like to talk about ways the provider can include you and your family in your love one’s care plan.

Choose a home care package provider

When you are thinking about choosing a home care provider, it’s important that you consider every touch point. How did they make you feel in that initial conversation? Did you feel welcome? Was it easy to set up an appointment? Did you feel like they answered all your questions?

You or your love one will be in regular contact with your home care package provider, so it’s important that they make you feel welcome and supported at all parts of the journey.

Once the government has approved you or your loved one for a home care package, you can officially choose your provider and receive your Home Care Agreement. This legal document will explain what funds are available for your use and will break down the Government’s contribution and your contribution (including the basic daily fee, income tested fees and any other fees). You can learn more about these fees in our Understanding Home Care fees and costs article.

It's important to make sure you fully understand this agreement before you sign it. If you need some help, you can find an independent advocate through the National Aged Care Advocacy Program.

A few other things to remember…

All Home Care Packages are 100 per cent portable. This means you or your loved one can move providers if you aren’t happy and still keep your package funding. You won’t lose your package.

Since 1 January 2023 providers cannot charge an exit fee, even if you agreed to it previously.