Support at Home for sole traders and small teams: how the programme actually pays you

Support at Home pays a registered provider, after the visit, out of a participant's quarterly budget held by Services Australia. A sole trader or small team is paid one of two ways: as a registered provider claiming that budget yourself, or as an associated provider invoicing the registered provider you work for. Either way the shape of the money is set by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing: a classification decides the quarterly budget, the service list decides what it can buy, the participant pays a means-tested share for some categories, and whatever is unspent at quarter end carries over only up to a cap.

What did Support at Home replace, and when?

The Department's Support at Home page states that the programme replaced the Home Care Packages Program and the Short-Term Restorative Care Programme on 1 November 2025. It sits under the Aged Care Act 2024, which is where the terms "registered provider" and "associated provider" come from.

How does a participant's funding work?

Each participant is assessed into one of eight classifications for ongoing services, and the classification sets a quarterly budget. The Department publishes the amount for each level on the classifications page, indexed on 1 July each year, so check that page rather than a figure repeated elsewhere. Ten per cent of each quarterly budget is set aside for care management.

Two things matter for a small team:

• The budget is quarterly, not annual. A participant has a quarter's money, and the quarter has an end date.
• The provider holds an individualised budget with the participant. The individualised budgets page requires the provider to write down the funding available, the price of each item and the participant's contribution for each item, and to review it when any of those change. Providers also owe every participant a monthly statement showing services delivered, contributions paid and the remaining quarterly budget.

Short-term funding (the Restorative Care Pathway, the End-of-Life Pathway, and assistive technology and home modifications) runs on separate accounts with their own time limits and does not carry over.

What services can the budget pay for?

Only services on the Department's Support at Home service list. The list has three participant contribution categories, fourteen service types, and forty-nine services. The three categories, as the Department describes them on its services page, are:

• Clinical supports, for example nursing care and nutrition.
• Independence services, for example personal care, respite and transport.
• Everyday living services, for example domestic assistance and home maintenance and repairs.

The category decides whether the participant pays a share, so it matters as much as the service.

Who pays what: the client contribution

The Department's participant contributions page sets the principle out plainly. A contribution is a percentage of the cost of the service for each service type: the participant pays that amount, and the government pays the remainder to the provider as a subsidy. There is no contribution for clinical supports, a moderate contribution for independence services, and the highest contribution for everyday living services.

The percentage is set per participant, not per provider. Services Australia runs an income and assets assessment, full pensioners pay the lowest rates, and Services Australia tells both provider and participant the amount payable. The provider collects it directly from the participant, only after the service has been delivered. The page also records a dated change: from 1 October 2026 personal care is fully funded and moves out of the independence category. There is no single percentage for "the client's share"; ask for each participant's rate.

What happens to unspent funds at the end of the quarter?

The Department's rule, from the individualised budgets page, is this. If a participant cannot use their whole ongoing quarterly budget, they can carry the unspent amount to the next quarter, automatically, up to the higher of:

• a capped amount of one thousand dollars, or
• ten per cent of their quarterly budget, including supplements.

The Department's own example: a participant has one thousand one hundred dollars unspent on a quarterly budget of eight thousand dollars. Ten per cent of the budget is eight hundred dollars, the capped amount is higher, so one thousand dollars carries over and the rest does not. Overspends run the other way: the provider cannot carry one into the next quarter, and either absorbs it or invoices the participant, only if they agreed to that beforehand. Unspent funds a participant brought across from a Home Care Package are the exception: the classifications page says no carryover limit applies to those.

Who sets the price, and are there caps?

Providers set their own prices. The Department's prices page requires them to be reasonable, based on the cost of delivering the service, and transparent: the most frequently charged price for each service must be published on My Aged Care and the provider's own website, reviewed at least every two months, and listed in each service agreement. Separate administration or travel fees cannot be charged.

On caps, the Department's how the programme works page says the government has deferred price caps until it has greater confidence in the stability of the market, and lists consumer protections in their place, including a quarterly national summary of prices. No date for caps is published on that page, so none is given here.

How does a sole trader or a small team take part?

There are two doors, and the Department's associated providers page describes both.

As a registered provider. The Aged Care Act 2024 lets a sole trader apply to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to become a registered provider. A registered provider claims from Services Australia, holds the service agreement and the individualised budget, collects contributions and issues the monthly statement.

As an associated provider. An associated provider delivers services on behalf of a registered provider, like a subcontractor, and can operate solely as a subcontractor and remain unregistered. The registered provider stays legally responsible, must make sure its associated providers meet the Act and the Quality Standards, and lists them with the Commission at registration and renewal. Your workers are aged care workers under the Act and must pass worker screening. In this door you never claim from the government; you invoice the registered provider.

What is not possible is a third door where an unregistered sole trader claims a participant's budget directly. The money always moves through a registered provider. The reasoning for choosing is close to the NDIS one in registered vs unregistered NDIS provider, except that Support at Home has no self-managed participant who can pay you out of their own plan.

Why does the date of a visit matter so much?

Because everything is keyed to the quarter. The Department's payment arrangements page says a provider may only claim a service after it has been delivered, must claim against the correct funding source, and has up to sixty days after the last day of the quarter to lodge ongoing-service claims, with a fixed deadline printed for each quarter. Services Australia subtracts any contribution due and pays the balance from the participant's account; the provider then invoices the participant for the contribution and any extras.

So a visit on the last day of a quarter draws on that quarter's budget, a visit the next morning draws on the new one, and a late claim misses the window. For an associated provider the same dates flow through: the registered provider cannot claim what you have not yet invoiced. Your invoice to it needs the same discipline as an NDIS one, and what an NDIS invoice must include covers the fields that carry across.

The programme's moving parts, and what a small team must track

The programme's moving part	Set by	What you must keep, per client
Classification and quarterly budget	Aged care assessment; indexed each July	The budget for the current quarter and its end date
Service list category	The Department's service list	Which category each service you deliver sits in
Contribution rate	Services Australia means test	The participant's percentage, and the date it last changed
Individualised budget and monthly statement	The registered provider, with the participant	Price per item, contribution per item, remaining budget
Carryover at quarter end	The Department's cap rule	Unspent balance against the cap, before the quarter closes
Claim window	Sixty days after quarter end	Delivered visits not yet claimed or invoiced, by quarter
Published prices	The provider, reviewed every two months	Your current price for each service, and where it is published

How HarvestFlow Care tracks a Support at Home client

HarvestFlow Care holds each Support at Home client as a funding plan made of quarters. Each quarter carries its subsidy budget and any carryover in, and fills as visits are delivered and claimed, so the remaining balance on screen is the number the monthly statement needs. The starter service catalogue is loaded with the service list's categories, so a visit's line knows which contribution category it belongs to.

The client's contribution sits on the agreement. You record the participant's percentage and choose how it reaches the funder invoice: bill the funder the full rate and track the client's share separately, ready to invoice the client, or bill the funder net of the contribution with the deduction shown as its own line. Either basis can be set for the whole practice and overridden per agreement. Travel and fees never attract a contribution.

At quarter close you press one button: the workspace applies the carryover cap, carries the allowed amount into the next quarter and records what did not carry. The cap is a setting, not a fixed number. The base amount and the percentage live under Admin, Billing, so when the Department changes the rule you change a setting. On Pro, the unspent-funds warning goes one step earlier: six weeks before a quarter ends it lists any client whose unspent balance, after counting the visits already booked, would exceed the cap, and shows what they would lose. The tiers are on the pricing page, and the quick start guide walks through the first funding plan.

What HarvestFlow Care does not do: it does not lodge claims with Services Australia, it does not decide a participant's contribution rate, and it does not tell you what a reasonable price is. Those stay with the registered provider, Services Australia and you.

General information. The programme's rules are the Department's; check the source before relying on a date or an amount.