Care management
One named person who knows the whole picture, arranges it, checks it's working, and answers the phone when it isn't.
It costs you nothing
Care management is a Clinical support under Support at Home, in the same category as nursing and allied health. Clinical supports are funded by the government in full, with no participant contribution at any income level. Somebody paying the top rate towards their cleaning still pays nothing towards care management.
Worth stating plainly, because a lot of people assume coordination is an overhead being quietly charged to them and try to decline it. It isn't, and declining it mostly means doing the job yourself with no saving to show for it.
What a care manager does
- Writes a care plan that says what happens, when, who does it, and what it's meant to achieve.
- Books and coordinates your services, including the ones we don't deliver ourselves.
- Watches for change: a new limp, a second fall, weight coming off, a carer's note that doesn't read right.
- Reviews the plan on schedule, and straight away when something shifts.
- Talks to your GP, the hospital discharge team, allied health and family, so you aren't the switchboard.
- Requests reassessment through My Aged Care when your needs have outgrown your classification.
- Keeps track of the quarterly budget, so you know what's left and where it's going.
- Is the person you ring when you don't know who to ring.
A care plan you'd recognise as yours
A plan written at intake and never opened again is worse than no plan, because everyone assumes it still describes reality. Yours should say what you actually want out of the arrangement, in ordinary words: getting to Mass on Sunday, staying in this house until the grandchildren finish school, showering without anyone watching. Then it says which services deliver that, and how we'd know if they'd stopped.
Reviews happen on a schedule and again whenever something moves. A hospital admission, a fall, a bereavement, a spouse who can no longer manage the nights: any of those should trigger a fresh look, not a note in a file.
The gaps are where things go wrong
Almost nothing fails in the middle of a service. It fails between them. The physiotherapist recommends a rail and nobody orders it. The hospital discharges on a Friday afternoon with a changed medication and the carer turns up Monday working from the old chart. The shower stool arrives in a box and sits in the hallway for three weeks.
Owning those gaps is the job. A reasonable test of any care manager is whether you ever have to explain the same thing twice to two different people in the same organisation.
Advocacy, which families rarely expect
Your care manager can chase My Aged Care on your behalf, request reassessment when your needs have clearly changed, question a decision that looks wrong, and translate a letter written in program language into what it means for you next week.
Older people get talked over in clinical settings, particularly when they're tired or unwell or their English is a second language. Having someone in the room whose job is your interests, and who has read the file, changes how those conversations go. If the person making decisions is a daughter in another state or another country, tell us at the start and we'll build the communication around that instead of leaving her to piece it together from phone calls.
What you can expect from us
A named care manager with a direct line, not a general queue. Contact that goes up when something is unstable and settles down when it isn't. Reviews that happen without you having to ask. And if the pairing doesn't work, a different care manager on request, with no explanation required.
If you're paying privately rather than through a package, you still have someone coordinating your services. We'll set out exactly what that involves before you start. The government funding described above applies to people with a Support at Home package.
Getting started
Call 1800 434 002 or send the form below. If you already hold a package with another provider and the coordination has quietly stopped, you can move. Your classification and your budget belong to you rather than to them, and we'll handle the paperwork and the timing so nothing lapses in between.
Other services
- Support at Home — how the program works, and what you contribute.
- In-home nursing — also a Clinical support, also fully funded.
- In-home allied health — physiotherapy, occupational therapy and dietetics at home.
- All services
Common questions
Do I have to pay for care management?
No. Care management is a Clinical support under Support at Home, in the same category as nursing and allied health, and clinical supports are funded by the government in full. There is no participant contribution on it at any income level. A self-funded retiree paying the top rate towards cleaning still pays nothing towards care management.
What is the difference between a care manager and a support worker?
The support worker is the person who comes to the house and does the showering, the cooking or the cleaning. The care manager is the person who decides what should be happening, arranges it, checks it is working and changes it when it stops working. You will see your support worker far more often. You will need your care manager at the moments that matter.
Does everyone on a package get a care manager?
Yes. Care management is part of every Support at Home package rather than an optional extra you have to request or argue for. How much of it you need varies a lot: someone stable with one weekly visit needs very little, and someone just home from hospital with four services starting at once needs a great deal.
How often will I actually hear from my care manager?
More often when something is unsettled, less often when things are running well, and always at the scheduled reviews. You get a named person and a direct line rather than a general queue. If months have gone by, your circumstances have changed and nobody has revisited your plan, that is worth raising and it is a fair thing to complain about.
Can I ask for a different care manager?
Yes, and you do not need to justify it. It is a working relationship built on talking about private things, and not every pairing fits. Ring us, say you would like someone else, and we will arrange it. Nobody here will take it personally or make it awkward for you afterwards.
I already have a package with another provider. Can I move?
Yes. Your classification and your budget belong to you, not to your current provider, and you are entitled to change. We handle the paperwork end of the switch and coordinate the timing so your services do not stop while it happens. Most people who move do it because coordination stopped happening and nobody would return their calls.
Enquire about care management
Tell us where you're up to and we'll be in touch. Prefer to talk? Call 1800 434 002.