Home Care Packages (HCP)

There’s a wide range of services you or your loved one can access from transport, health or care support depending on what and how much help you’re looking for. Below we’ve put together some of the types of support you can access within your Home Care Package.

Help at home

Having some help at home can allow independent living. We can provide support with cleaning, tidying or home and garden maintenance. That could be some help with changing a lightbulb or having someone to help tidy and organise cupboards.

In-home respite care

A Home Care Package can be used for respite care, which means care provided by a friend or relative is covered if they need a breather or are ill.

This can give a carer a rest and help to prioritise safety and independence in order to maintain a high quality of life at home. This can be for a few hours or for a longer overnight break and will give a carer the chance to take a rest.

Food

Preparing shopping lists, transport to a supermarket and making delicious home-cooked meals are all aspects of care our team can support you with. And we can help with as much or as little help that you need. For example, you might just want help with picking up some groceries but enjoy cooking the meal.

Changes to your home

If there are any issues with mobility, we can help make a home feel safer. This could be adding in ramps, rails or aids such as showering aids, bed rails or pressure-relieving mattresses to you or your loved one’s home.

Personal care

We can help with any personal care needed, such as showering, personal or dental hygiene, incontinence management, dressing or assistance with transfers. We are able to support requests for gender-specific care.

Fitness

We can support you or your loved one in keeping fit with the help of a physiotherapist or personal trainer (PT). We can also provide transport to activity classes such as yoga or meditation. Your care professional can help support and maintain an exercise programme as set out by the physio, PT or occupational therapist.

Transport

We can arrange transport for trips planned from visits to friends to shopping trips.

Social support

It’s important to keep an active social life. And we can provide care companionship and help support and join in the activities that the recipient of the HCP is passionate about and loves.

Australian residents aged over 65, Torres Strait Islanders or Aboriginal people over 50, looking for some support at home can apply for a Home Care Package.

While it’s easy and quick to apply, it can take over a year before the funds are ready so our advice is to apply as soon as you can. And if you can’t wait that long, you could explore privately funded support with us in the meantime.

1. Apply early

Apply as soon as you can by calling My Aged Care on 1800 200 422 or by registering online by visiting: www.myagedcare.gov.au/assessment

You’ll be asked some questions about you or your loved one’s care needs and you will need the Medicare card of the HCP recipient to hand. If you’re calling on behalf of someone else, they’ll need to be with you on the call to give their consent.

And if you need any support while you’re waiting, you can talk to us about arranging privately funded care in the meantime. Simply call 02 9343 0880 or request a callback.

2. Assessment

A professional clinician will come and meet you to carry out an assessment to help you find out what support you’ll need. They’ll ask you questions about your health, what support you may get from friends and family, your hobbies and how mobile you are at home.

3. Approval letter

My Aged Care will send an approval letter after the assessment to let you know what subsidies you are able to have. It will contain a referral code to access your Home Care Package, so keep it safe!

4. Allocation letter

Around one year later you’ll get a letter to say your funds are ready for you to choose your provider and start using the Home Care Package. You have up to 56 days to do this otherwise the funds are given to someone else!

It can be difficult to understand all of the different fees and how much the Government funding covers for each type of support. So, we’ve put together some information about what fees there are and how they work to help make Home Care Packages a little easier to understand!

Care For Family will help you manage your Home Care Packages for pensioners, part-pensioners and self-funded retirees. And the total management fees are only 20% of each package.

Unlike many providers, we don’t charge any basic daily care fees or exit fees. What is even more reassuring is that our services fees are low, which means that you get more care for your package than you would do with most other providers.

This means that you’ll always get the best value for your Home Care Packages and your private care too if you need any because we still offer exceptionally high levels of quality, professional and compassionate care even at comparatively low prices.

We can do this because we believe that the highest quality care should be available to everyone that needs it.

Income-tested fee

The Government fee is known as the income-tested fee. There will be an income test so that the Government can work out if you can afford to contribute to the care.

This will be done through Centrelink and they will write a letter explaining whether additional contributions are needed for the care. If the HCP recipient earns over $53,731.60, they’ll pay an income-tested care fee on a sliding scale of up to $11,234.96 per year.

There’s a lifetime cap of around $67,400. If the HCP applicant is a full pensioner, they won’t need to pay for this. And if they’re a part-pensioner, they’ll never pay more than $5,617.47 per annum.

Basic daily care fee

Many providers charge a basic daily fee, but we don’t charge this. The basic fee is set by the Government and is a maximum of $10.75 per day, or 17.5% of the pension rate.

Administration fees

Administration fees cover the day to day running of the business, such as paying our staff wages, travel and insurance. We try to keep these costs down to no more than 20 per cent of your overall package funds, so that more money can be spent on exceptional care.

Establishment or set-up fees

Unlike other companies We do not charge any set-up fees for your Home Care Package service, which some providers do.

Exit fees

Some providers charge exit fees, but we are confident you’ll be happy with our services so we don’t charge you an exit fee.

Care management fees

Care management fees cover the costs to manage and organise the HCP care for you or your loved one, which we’ve detailed below in this handy table along with information about some of the other remaining costs of a Home Care Package depending on what support you need.

Plan Management

We partner with a Home Care Package management company to ensure correct Government reporting and transparency. You can track all spending and have control over your funds through their website.

Care Management

Your care manager will meet you to understand your lifestyle, your goals, your care requirements, and to set your budget. When your needs change, your care manager will ensure your continued care.

Invoicing

This covers the administration costs of invoicing and bank charges.

Basic Daily Care Fee

This is the government set contribution, Care For Family does not collect this fee. Many providers do, which means that you get less care for your money with them.

Exit Fees

This is a fee to end the agreement before the end of the year. Many providers charge exit fees and in our opinion, this causes undue stress for clients and can restrict their ability to get the right care for them. Care For Family doesn’t ever charge these fees so that our clients have the total freedom to end their services or move to another provider whenever they choose.

If you’d like to compare the number of hours of care that you’d receive from Care For Family to other providers, you can quickly see in the table below how many hours of care you’d receive from us in relation to each Home Care Package level. 

*Where all remaining funds in package are used to purchase CFF care at Monday to Friday rates 2020-2021 rates. Figures do not include cognition or veterans supplement.

**Where all remaining funds in package are used to purchase CFF care at Monday to Friday rates 2020-2021 rates. Figures do not include cognition or veterans supplement nor temporary COVID subsidy.

Please know that if you require night or weekend care, Registered Nurse or Allied Health services, mileage, equipment hire and nursing resources paid by your Home Care Package, it will use some of your budget reducing the hours of care your Government Funded Home Care Package can pay for.