24 Jul Support at Home: Are You Supporting Your Admin Team?
Your clients may be benefiting from the new Support at Home program—but what about your admin team? Behind every care recipient is a hardworking back-office crew now facing one of the biggest administrative shake-ups in aged care history.
The most recent assessment of the aged care sector by Enkindle Consulting found financial viability was the biggest headache for providers.
Let’s break down what’s changing and how providers can stay afloat—without drowning in spreadsheets.
A New Way of Charging Clients
The old system of income-tested and basic daily fees is gone. Under Support at Home, clients now contribute to the cost of their care based on:
The Type of Service
Clinical care (like nursing or allied health) is fully government-funded.
Independence services (like personal care or transport) attract a small co-contribution.
Everyday living tasks (like cleaning or gardening) require a higher contribution, as clients may have historically paid for these themselves.
Income and Asset Assessments
Clients have their income and assets assessed by Services Australia.
Even pensioners may now contribute.
Self-funded retirees will pay a much higher share.
This means providers will now need to invoice most clients monthly, not just the occasional self-funded one. That’s a major increase in admin work.
Funding Pools Just Got Complex
The days of a single home care package are over. Now, client funding comes from multiple sources: One of 8 new Support at Home levels, or a grandfathered package (split quarterly). And there’s more including-
Supplements for specific conditions (oxygen, enteral feeding, dementia, DVA, hardship, etc.).
Short-term programs like the 16-week Restorative Care or 12-week End-of-Life Pathway.
Assistive tech and home mods with three funding levels and 12-month expiry dates.
Care management funding, typically 10% of your clients’ budgets, pooled—but calculated differently for short-term care.
Each client’s funding and co-payments will look different—and they can change with a new income assessment. This makes budgeting and service planning more important than ever.
Admin Teams Are Under Pressure
Clients now expect more—because they’re paying more. But they can only receive the services approved in their Support Plan. If your admin team schedules something that isn’t listed, someone will be out of pocket (and it won’t be the client).
There are other challenges too:
You can only carry over 10% (or $1,000) of unspent funds to the next quarter.
Budgets must be carefully planned across 3-month blocks.
Clients may say they can’t afford their co-payment—how will your team respond? Waive the service? Cancel it? Investigate?
On top of that, you must now set your own prices. Getting your pricing and unit costs wrong could put your business at risk. StewartBrown research suggests smaller providers often carry admin costs of 20–30%, and to be “investable,” you’ll need a profit margin of 7–10%.
What You Need to Survive (and Thrive)
To manage this increasing complexity, aged care providers need more than spreadsheets and goodwill. You need smarter systems.
Here’s what’s essential:
Automated rostering to reduce travel time and ensure accurate pay.
Smart budgeting tools that draw from Services Australia funding pools and track spending across each quarter.
IT systems that can handle co-payments, funding carryovers, and multiple client plans with ease.
One Solution: VIPS Care
VIPS Care is built for this complexity. It not only handles 3-month budgeting from all the funding pools and payment tracking, but also offers:
Integrated contractor management
Vulnerability flags to ensure no client is forgotten
A resource library with templates and live links to compliance essentials
Plus more features that tick boxes for the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission – and your clients.
Support at Home is bringing real reform—but it’s also bringing real administrative pressure. Providers need to adapt quickly, manage co-payments accurately, and streamline their systems to survive in a “thin” (read: struggling) market.
Supporting your admin team is no longer optional—it’s business critical.