Support at Home turns one in a few weeks. Providers spent the first year learning quarterly budgets, eight classification levels and three contribution categories. Then, on 1 October 2026, one of the most visible pieces moved: personal care stopped attracting a participant contribution.
For older people and families, the message is simple. Showering, dressing and continence support are now fully funded. For providers, it is not so simple. The change touches your service catalogue, billing logic, client statements, service agreements and pricing, and it has to be right from a specific date.
We are now two weeks past go-live, and the first statements under the new rules are going out. This guide covers what changed, what did not, and what to check in your systems and processes now.
What changed on 1 October 2026
Personal care moved from the Independence contribution category to Clinical Supports. Clinical Supports attract no participant contribution, so approved personal care is now fully government funded. Independence (transport, social support, assistive technology, home modifications) and Everyday Living (cleaning, gardening, meal preparation) remain means tested.
The government announced the change on 22 April 2026, after sustained concern that co-contributions were leading some older people to cut back on essential care. It is estimated to cost $1 billion over four years. The services affected are the existing personal care services on the Support at Home service list: showering and bathing, dressing and undressing, non-clinical continence management, assistance with eating, personal hygiene, and assistance with self-administration of medication.
A separate increase to Support at Home budgets and some supplements also started on 1 October 2026, to help providers meet higher award wages for registered and enrolled nurses. It is unrelated to the personal care change, but it landed on the same day, so make sure your team does not confuse the two.
- The definition of personal care — same services, same worker qualifications, same registration categories
- Eligibility — personal care still has to be approved in the participant's support plan, and no new assessment is needed
- Budgets — personal care still draws down the quarterly budget at the full price you charge, and the budget did not grow because of this change
- CHSP — the change applies only to Support at Home, and CHSP keeps its own fee arrangements until it transitions, no earlier than 1 July 2027
Why it matters more than it looks
On paper this is a category change. In practice it shifts three things providers manage every day.
Who pays, not how much. The total price of a personal care visit has not changed. What changed is the split between the participant contribution and the government subsidy. Your revenue per visit should be the same, but every invoice, claim and statement line for personal care now looks different.
Demand. Some clients reduced personal care to manage costs. With the contribution gone, expect requests to add visits back. That is good for clients, but it draws down budgets faster and puts pressure on rostering capacity, especially in regional areas and peak morning shifts.
Scrutiny on pricing. The Department and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission have signalled they will monitor personal care pricing through the transition. The concern is providers raising hourly rates to recoup the removed contribution. With price caps deferred in May 2026, your pricing decisions on personal care need to be defensible and documented.
What to check in your systems now
The change was mandatory from 1 October. If your systems were updated before go-live, the job now is to confirm they are working on real data. If they were not, this is the priority list.
Service catalogue and mapping. Every personal care service type must be mapped to Clinical Supports from 1 October. Check for local or custom service codes that were set up as personal care under a different name. Those are the ones most likely to be missed.
Contribution calculations. The trigger is the date of service, not the invoice date. Personal care delivered on or before 30 September still attracts the old contribution, even if you invoice it in October. Test a September visit invoiced in October and an October visit side by side.
Claims. Check that personal care claimed for October shows no participant contribution and the correct subsidy. Reconcile your first October claim against delivered services before the pattern repeats each month.
Monthly statements. Participants and families have been told to compare their October and September statements line by line. Any contribution against personal care after 1 October will generate a call, and possibly a complaint. Review a sample before statements go out.
Individualised budgets. Budgets need to show personal care in the Clinical Supports category. Where clients want more personal care, update the budget forecast so they can see the impact on their quarterly funds.
Service agreements and care plans. Providers are required to update participant-facing documents to reflect the new arrangement. Use the update as a chance to review care plans with clients who cut back on personal care earlier in the year.
Rostering capacity. If personal care demand rises, model it now. A short look at morning shift coverage and travel time by region will tell you whether you can say yes to extra visits.
Five pitfalls to watch for
Most of the errors we expect to see in the first billing cycles come from a small number of causes. None of them are exotic, and all of them are easier to fix before the second statement run than after it.
- Using the invoice date instead of the service date — this either undercharges September care or overcharges October care
- Mixed visits — a single visit that combines personal care with domestic assistance needs each component in the right category, and bundled line items hide errors
- Custom service codes — codes created locally for personal care variations, such as overnight or two-carer visits, are easy to leave on the old category
- Changing personal care rates without a clear rationale — any rate change now will be read against the contribution removal, so if costs genuinely changed, document why
- Treating CHSP clients the same way — providers running both programs need to keep CHSP fee arrangements separate, because the change does not apply to CHSP
Provider checklist
Use this as a working list for your operations, finance and care management teams. If your finance team cannot tick every item today, that tells you where to start.
- All personal care service types, including custom codes, mapped to Clinical Supports from 1 October 2026
- Contribution logic driven by date of service, tested across the 30 September and 1 October boundary
- October claim reconciled against delivered personal care
- Sample of October statements reviewed before release
- Individualised budgets updated to show the new category
- Service agreements and participant documents updated
- Care plan reviews offered to clients who reduced personal care because of cost
- Personal care pricing reviewed, with any change documented
- Nurse wage budget and supplement increase recorded separately
- CHSP fee arrangements confirmed as unchanged
- Rostering capacity modelled for increased personal care demand
- Front-line and finance staff briefed on how to answer client questions
Where your aged care software should be doing the work
A change like this should be a configuration update in your aged care software, not a manual exercise across spreadsheets. The test is simple: could your finance team prove, today, that no participant paid a contribution for personal care delivered after 1 October?
Good home care software should handle four things for you. Category rules by service date, so the boundary between old and new arrangements is applied automatically. Claims and statements from one source of truth, so what you claim, what you bill and what the client sees all match. Live budget visibility, so care managers can show a client what extra personal care will cost their quarterly budget before saying yes. And rostering linked to care plans, so new demand flows straight into scheduling and travel planning.
Support at Home has changed several times in its first year, and it will change again before CHSP joins in 2027. The providers who cope best are the ones whose systems absorb the change, freeing their people to focus on care.
That is the approach we took at TurnPoint. Rather than asking providers to remap services and adjust billing by hand, we built a four-step wizard that moved them to the new arrangements without manual data manipulation. Historical data stays protected, so personal care delivered before 1 October keeps its original contribution treatment, and records remain intact for reconciliation and audit.
Want to see how TurnPoint handles Support at Home billing, budgets and rostering in one place? Book a demo.
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