Get more care. Less paperwork. Better value.
Independent, practical help with Australia's aged care system. Find workers, manage claims, understand your funding and spend less time fighting bureaucracy.
Would rather talk to a person? Get personal help from Colin. The first 20 minutes are free.
How much care does the budget buy?
Support at Home gives each person a quarterly budget. Before anything is spent, 10% goes to the provider for care management. What's left pays for services, so the hourly rate decides how much care actually turns up.
Classification 4 is $7,617.13 a quarter.
At $95 an hour
5.5 hours a week
At $66 an hour
8 hours a week
Same money, about 32 more hours of care a quarter.
An illustration, not a quote. It uses the quarterly budgets current at 01/07/2026 from health.gov.au, takes off the 10% for care management, and spreads the rest over 13 weeks. Your real hours also depend on the services you use, any contribution you pay, and what your provider agrees to.
The system should work for the people giving and getting care
CarePlan started in Mallacoota, while I was sorting out my mum's aged care. The money was there. Getting it turned into actual help was the hard part: finding local workers, getting them approved, and chasing invoices that came back over a single word.
Older Australians miss out on care they're entitled to because the system is confusing and the paperwork wears families down. The workers doing the real work wait weeks to be paid. This site is here to fix the bits we can.
Colin Dixon, Mallacoota
- The budget is there, the care isn't
- Money sits unspent because nobody can find a worker, or a quote is stuck waiting for approval. Finding and engaging a worker
- The invoice comes back
- A cleaner goes unpaid because the description wasn't worded the way the provider wanted. Check an invoice
- Nobody knows where things are up to
- Claims sit "in processing" and nobody's quite sure who has the ball. Track your claims
Free tools
They run on your phone or computer. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
- What could I get? A few plain questions about the person you're helping. Then their likely budget, what they might pay, and what to do next. For families. Free, and nothing you type leaves your device.
- Invoice checker Fill in your invoice and it checks the ABN, the maths and the wording providers reject. Then print a clean copy. For workers. Free, and nothing you type leaves your device.
- Claims tracker What's been sent, approved, rejected or paid, how many days it's been, and a polite follow-up email ready to go. For everyone. Free, and nothing you type leaves your device.
Free guides, checked against the rules
All guides and tools- Support at Home in plain English What Support at Home is, who can get it, how the budget works, and what you might pay. The place to start if aged care is new to you.
- How to apply for an aged care assessment, step by step The first step to Support at Home. How to apply online or by phone, what you'll need, and how to get ready for the assessor's visit.
- Self-managing: what you can do, and what your provider still has to do The government rules let you do far more yourself than many providers suggest. Here's the line between the rules and a provider's own policy.
- Finding and engaging an independent worker How to find a good local worker, what to check before they start, and how to get your provider to approve them.
Independent worker? Use free AI for the paperwork
Turn your week into an invoice, check it before you send it, and chase late payments politely, using free tools like ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude. Our free kit has the prompts, templates and privacy tips.
Rather someone just sorted it?
I can review a care budget or statement, find and line up local workers, prepare approval requests and claims, chase invoices that are stuck, and help workers set up invoicing that gets paid.
The first 20 minute chat is free. After that it's $88 an hour, charged in 15 minute blocks, and I'll quote a fixed price for bigger jobs before I start. Ask whether your provider can fund this help.
See how personal help worksKeep the guides free
The guides and tools are free for everyone and they'll stay that way. If they helped, you can chip in or become a supporter. It's voluntary and it isn't tax deductible.