Support at Home for allied health providers: how it works

If you deliver physio, OT, podiatry, speech pathology or dietetics to older people at home, the funding behind many of those visits changed on 1 November 2025, when Support at Home began. For an allied health practice, the visits themselves usually look the same. What changed is who you hold an agreement with, who claims from the government, what the participant pays, and what your paperwork needs to show.

This is a practice owner's guide to the shape of the program. It is not a substitute for the guidance published by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, which sets the current rules and is updated far more often than a blog post should be.

What Support at Home replaced

Support at Home replaced Home Care Packages and Short-Term Restorative Care as the main way older Australians receive government-funded care at home, with the Commonwealth Home Support Programme due to move across later. It started alongside the new Aged Care Act, which reset how aged care providers are registered and what they are accountable for.

For a participant, it means an assessed classification with a budget, a support plan, and services drawn from a defined service list. There are also short-term pathways, including one built around restorative care, which often leans heavily on allied health.

Registered providers and associated providers

The relationship that matters most to an allied health practice is the one between the registered provider and the associated provider.

A registered provider is registered under the aged care framework to deliver Support at Home services. It holds the participant's agreement, manages their budget and support plan, claims from the government, and stays responsible for the quality of every service delivered under that agreement, including the ones it subcontracts.

An associated provider delivers services on behalf of a registered provider under an arrangement with it. Many allied health practices work this way: you see the participant, invoice the registered provider at your agreed rate, and the registered provider claims the service against the participant's budget. You remain accountable for your own professional registration where it applies, your conduct and your records, and the registered provider will want evidence that you meet the standards it answers for.

Two details are worth knowing. An associated provider's name appears on the participant's monthly statement, so expect the registered provider to ask for your business details up front. And a sole trader with no employees who delivers the services personally is generally treated as one of the registered provider's aged care workers rather than as an associated provider. The department's guidance on associated providers walks through examples, so check which describes your practice.

Some practices register in their own right. That brings direct relationships with participants and direct claiming, along with the registration, governance and reporting obligations that come with them. Which route suits you depends on how much of your caseload is aged care and how much administration you want to carry.

The service list and where allied health sits

Support at Home funds services from a defined service list, grouped into categories: clinical supports, independence and everyday living. Allied health and therapy services sit with clinical supports. A service has to be on the list, in the participant's support plan, and delivered under an arrangement with the registered provider before it can be claimed.

Before the first visit, ask the registered provider three questions:

1. Which service on the list will this visit be claimed under?
2. Is it in the participant's current support plan, and is there budget for it?
3. What do you need on our invoice, and how soon after the visit?

Participant contributions

Support at Home asks many participants to contribute to the cost of their care, based on a means assessment and on the category of service. The program's design is that participants do not contribute to clinical supports, which is where most allied health sits, while contributions apply to the independence and everyday living categories. Some people who were already receiving care before the change are on transitional arrangements.

Two things follow for your practice. First, contributions are generally the registered provider's to collect, because your invoice goes to the registered provider, not the participant. Second, participants and families will still ask you about cost. Be ready to point them to their registered provider rather than guessing, and confirm the current contribution rules with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing before you put anything about cost in writing.

Claiming: you invoice, they claim

As an associated provider you do not claim from the government; the registered provider does. Your job is to send them an invoice they can match to a participant, a service, a date and an agreed price, quickly enough to fit their own claiming cycle. The details that make that work:

• The participant's full name and any identifier the registered provider uses
• The date of each service and its duration
• The service, described the way your agreement with the registered provider describes it
• Your agreed price, your ABN and the GST treatment
• The registered provider's purchase order or reference, if they issue one

Your price is a commercial agreement between you and the registered provider. The program's pricing rules govern what the registered provider charges the participant, and those rules have been changing since launch: the price caps planned for 1 July 2026, for example, were paused in May 2026. Check what applies before you sign or renew an agreement.

How AspireOS handles Support at Home

Support at Home is one of the eight funding types built into AspireOS. The patient's funding card records the participant's level, the registered provider you bill (AspireOS calls it the care partner) and the support plan. Invoices go to that provider rather than the participant, and are flagged if your agreement with it is not confirmed. You can draft a Support at Home service agreement from your own template and have it signed online, with a register of who has signed.

Overdue Support at Home invoices are chased with the provider, not the patient, and your price book holds the agreed price for the funder. AspireOS does not claim from the government or manage the participant's budget; that stays with the registered provider. The Support at Home page and the full feature list cover the detail.

If most of your aged care work runs through a handful of registered providers, book a demo and we will show you how those agreements and invoices look in AspireOS.