Aged Care Act 2024

Home Care Packages: Why Funding Goes Unused

By Home Visit Network

14 July 2026

14 min read

For years, one of the quiet problems in Australian home care was money that never got spent. Older Australians were assessed as needing support, allocated government funding to pay for it, and then — for reasons that were rarely their fault — left significant portions of that funding sitting unused. The system that produced this, the Home Care Package (HCP) program, has now been replaced. But the underspend problem did not vanish with it, and understanding why matters more than ever for families navigating the new arrangements.

This article explains what changed when Support at Home replaced Home Care Packages on 1 November 2025, why funding still goes unused under the new model, what happens to unspent HCP balances that carried across, and the concrete steps families can take right now to make sure approved funding actually turns into care.

First, What Actually Changed in November 2025

The Home Care Package program no longer exists as a live program. On 1 November 2025, it was replaced by the Support at Home program, alongside the new rights-based Aged Care Act 2024.^[8] If you or a family member were on a Home Care Package before that date, the package was automatically converted to a matching Support at Home arrangement — no reapplication was required, and a “no worse off” principle protects the contributions of anyone who was receiving or approved for a package on or before 12 September 2024.

The structural differences are significant, and several of them bear directly on the underspend problem:

Eight classification levels instead of four. Support at Home replaced the old four HCP levels with eight ongoing classifications, ranging from around $10,731 per year (Classification 1) to $78,106 per year (Classification 8), so funding more closely matches assessed need.^[10] People who transitioned from an HCP sit in a “transitioned” level equivalent to their old package until reassessed.
Quarterly budgets, not an accumulating account. Ongoing funding is now divided into four quarterly budgets released in July, October, January and April, rather than accumulating indefinitely in a notional account.
Care management capped at 10% by law. Providers can deduct a maximum of 10% of each quarterly budget for care management, meaning at least 90% must go to actual services. Under the old HCP system, some providers charged 30–45% in combined package management and administration fees.
No separate package management, admin, entry or exit fees. All costs must be bundled into a single published service price. Providers must publish their prices, and exit fees are banned.
Clinical care is fully funded. Nursing and allied health (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, podiatry, speech pathology and more) are classified as clinical care and carry zero participant co-contribution, regardless of income or assets.

These changes address some — not all — of the operational reasons funding historically went unused. The rest of this article looks at what still drives underspend, and what to do about it.

Why Funding Still Goes Unused: The Operational Reality

1. Recipients Don’t Know What Their Funding Can Cover

This was the single biggest driver of underspend under Home Care Packages, and it persists under Support at Home. The funding can pay for a far broader range of services than most recipients realise: allied health (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, dietetics, podiatry), nursing, personal care, domestic assistance, social support, and — through a separate Assistive Technology and Home Modifications (AT-HM) scheme — equipment and home modifications like grab rails and ramps.

In our experience working with mobile practitioners, many of their funded clients arrived at their first appointment not knowing their funding could cover in-home allied health until a GP, family member or discharge nurse mentioned it. The therapists on our network consistently report that the gap between what a care budget can fund and what recipients believe it covers remains one of the biggest barriers to funding being used effectively. It is a structural information failure that costs older Australians access to support they have already been assessed as needing.

2. Allied Health Is Often Left Out of the Initial Care Plan

The default intake process at many providers still focuses on personal care and domestic assistance. Unless the care manager or the recipient specifically requests allied health, it may not be proposed at all. This is significant because allied health maps directly onto the goals most participants actually hold: staying mobile, staying safe at home, maintaining independence and managing chronic conditions.

It is worth flagging this explicitly. A mobile occupational therapist completing a home safety assessment, or a physiotherapist working on fall prevention, is both a direct use of the care budget and a meaningful reduction in hospital admission risk — and under Support at Home, because it is clinical care, it costs the participant nothing.

3. Workforce Shortages Limit Service Access

Even when recipients understand their entitlements and their funding is intact, they may be unable to find available providers, particularly in regional and rural areas. Australia’s aged care workforce has been under sustained pressure, and analyses of the sector continue to identify staffing gaps, high turnover and inadequate skill mix as persistent structural problems.^[5] A budget that cannot be spent because no suitable local provider is available delivers no benefit.

Mobile and in-home allied health services have become increasingly important in filling these gaps. A physiotherapist or occupational therapist who travels to the client’s home removes the transport barrier that frequently prevents older people from accessing clinic-based services, and can often be engaged more flexibly than centre-based providers. Families and care coordinators can find qualified mobile practitioners by conducting a postcode search on the Home Visit Network platform.

4. The Wait Between Approval and Funding

Support at Home uses a priority-based allocation system, and there can still be a lag between assessment, approval and funding becoming available. During that window, a recipient’s needs are active even though their full budget is not. The Government has committed that all participants who received interim funding during 2025–26 will move to full funding by 30 June 2026, and those classified as urgent receive full funding within a month. But for families managing a rapidly changing care situation, the timeline can feel impractically slow.

5. Care Plans Aren’t Reviewed Frequently Enough

A care plan agreed at commencement may no longer reflect a person’s needs six or twelve months later. When plans go unreviewed, recipients keep receiving the same services even after their needs, household situation or preferences have changed — and services that are no longer the right fit are used less consistently, which feeds underspend. Active care coordination, including regular plan reviews, is part of what the 10% care management allocation is meant to pay for. When it does not happen, both the quality and the volume of services decline.

What Happens to Unspent Funds Under Support at Home

This is where the new rules genuinely matter, and where a lot of families are currently confused. There are two separate pools of unspent money, and they behave very differently.

Unspent quarterly funds (new money). At the end of each quarter, you can carry over only a limited amount of your ongoing budget: the higher of $1,000 or 10% of your quarterly budget. Anything above that cap is returned to the government and does not carry forward.^[9] This is deliberate — it is designed to stop large balances accumulating and to encourage timely use of support. In practice, it means a consistent quarterly surplus is no longer something that quietly banks for a rainy day; it is largely lost.

Retained HCP funds (old money). If you were on a Home Care Package before 1 November 2025 and had unspent funds as of 31 October 2025, those funds carried across to Support at Home in full. Crucially, no rollover cap applies to these retained HCP funds — they sit in a separate account and remain yours to use. One important rule: these retained funds must generally be spent first on eligible services and home modifications before you can access government-funded supports under the AT-HM scheme.^[9]

The practical takeaway is that the new quarterly cap creates a genuine “use it or lose it” pressure that did not exist under the old accumulating model. Reviewing your plan at the start of each quarter, not the end, is now the difference between using your funding and forfeiting part of it.

What the Aged Care Act 2024 Changes in Practice

The rights-based Aged Care Act 2024, which commenced on 1 November 2025, introduces several practical changes relevant to anyone receiving home care:^[8]

A strengthened Statement of Rights for older people in the aged care system.
Clearer obligations on providers to deliver transparent information about costs and services, including publicly published prices.
Increased regulatory and enforcement powers for the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, which can now order refunds where a provider has overcharged.
An obligations framework that positions care as something owed to the recipient as a right, not a discretionary service.

These are meaningful in principle. The implementation question the sector is still working through is whether they translate into fewer information gaps, more competitive provider behaviour and faster service commencement. One change worth noting: government-set price caps were legislated to begin on 1 July 2026, but in May 2026 the Government deferred them with no confirmed new start date. Until they take effect, providers continue to set their own prices, which means the practical buying power of a quarterly budget varies by provider and can change without notice. The ban on separate admin, entry and exit fees, the requirement to publish prices, and the Commission’s refund powers all already apply, and comparing published prices across providers before committing is worthwhile.

The Role of Allied Health in Reducing Underspend

One of the most underused levers for turning approved funding into actual care is more systematic use of allied health. Occupational therapy, physiotherapy and related disciplines are directly relevant to the goals most participants hold, and under Support at Home they carry no co-contribution.

Because allied health is frequently absent from initial care plans, raising it proactively is often the highest-impact single step a family can take. For GPs and discharge planners, this is worth flagging explicitly when patients return home with funding in place: ask whether allied health has been included in the care plan, and whether in-home delivery has been considered. A home-based occupational therapy assessment or physiotherapy review is often the most clinically valuable way to begin drawing down a budget that would otherwise sit partly unspent.

What Families and Carers Can Do Right Now

If you are managing care for an older person receiving Support at Home, these practical steps help ensure the funding is actually used:

Review the budget at the start of each quarter. Because only the higher of $1,000 or 10% of an unused quarterly budget rolls over, a start-of-quarter review is now the key moment to make sure the plan is using the available funding before it is forfeited.
Ask for a written list of every service category the budget can fund. Allied health, nursing, home modifications and assistive technology (via the AT-HM scheme) are often not proactively offered.
Request an allied health review. An occupational therapy home assessment or physiotherapy review is clinically high-value and, as clinical care, carries no participant contribution.
Check your care management charge. It is capped at 10% of the quarterly budget by law. If a provider’s charges appear to exceed that, or you see separate “admin”, “overhead” or “package management” line items, question them — those separate fees are no longer permitted.
If you transitioned from an HCP, locate your retained funds. Unspent HCP balances carried across in full with no rollover cap and sit in a separate account. Ask your provider exactly how much you hold and how to use it (generally before accessing AT-HM scheme funding).
Schedule a care plan review if it has been more than six months. Needs change, and an unreviewed plan is a common source of underspend. If needs have genuinely increased, a reassessment through My Aged Care may result in a higher classification and a larger budget.
If services aren’t available locally, ask about mobile providers. In-home allied health and nursing providers can often reach clients who cannot access clinic-based services, and you have complete freedom to choose and switch providers with no exit fees.

For any of these, My Aged Care can help on 1800 200 422.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do Home Care Packages still exist?

No. The Home Care Package program was replaced by the Support at Home program on 1 November 2025. Existing recipients were automatically transitioned to an equivalent Support at Home arrangement with no need to reapply, and a “no worse off” principle protects the contributions of those who were receiving or approved for a package on or before 12 September 2024.

Can Support at Home fund in-home physiotherapy or occupational therapy?

Yes. Allied health services including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, dietetics and podiatry are classified as clinical care under Support at Home and are fully government-funded with no participant co-contribution, provided they are included in the care plan. They can be delivered in the home by qualified mobile practitioners.

What happens to unspent Support at Home funds?

There are two pools. Unspent ongoing quarterly funds roll over only up to the higher of $1,000 or 10% of your quarterly budget; anything above that is returned to the government. Separately, any unspent Home Care Package funds you held as of 31 October 2025 carried across in full, sit in a separate account, and are not subject to the quarterly rollover cap.

How much can a provider charge for care management?

Care management is capped by law at 10% of your quarterly budget, so at least 90% of your funding must go to actual services. Separate package management, administration, entry and exit fees are no longer permitted — all costs must be in a single published service price.

Can I change my Support at Home provider?

Yes. You have complete freedom to choose and switch providers at any time, and exit fees are banned. Your retained HCP funds and ongoing budget follow you, though transition processes can take some time to complete.

How can a mobile allied health provider help if I’m on Support at Home?

Mobile allied health professionals travel to the recipient’s home, removing the transport and logistics barriers that prevent many older people from accessing clinic-based care. They can provide physiotherapy, occupational therapy, nursing and other services as part of a Support at Home care plan — and because allied health is clinical care, there is no co-contribution.

References

Home Visit Network Team: The Home Visit Network Team connects Australians with qualified mobile healthcare professionals who provide services in the comfort of your home.