What aged care funding at home can and cannot be spent on
Aged care funding at home pays for care and support that helps you keep living at home: personal care such as showering and dressing, nursing, help around the house, meal preparation, transport to appointments, allied health, and some equipment and home modifications. It does not pay for everyday costs you would have anyway — rent, groceries, utilities, entertainment — or for anything the health system already covers.
VSG Home Care is a registered NDIS provider. We are not an approved aged care provider yet, and we cannot deliver Support at Home services today. This page explains how the system works — it is not an offer of service. For anything about your own situation, contact My Aged Care on 1800 200 422.
The general rule
Funding covers the help you need because of ageing. It does not cover the cost of living.
That one line resolves most questions. Cleaning the bathroom because you can no longer safely bend and scrub is care. The cleaning products themselves are groceries. A worker driving you to a specialist is care. The specialist's bill is health. Somebody preparing your meals is care; the food is your shopping.
What is usually included
Personal care — showering, dressing, grooming, help getting to the toilet, and prompting for medication.
Nursing at home — wound care, medication management, continence and catheter support, and health monitoring by a registered or enrolled nurse.
Help around the house — cleaning, laundry, and meal preparation, at the level your own needs call for rather than the whole household's.
Getting out — transport to appointments, shopping and activities, and someone to go with you where that is what makes the trip possible.
Allied health — physiotherapy, occupational therapy, podiatry and dietetics where they keep you steadier and more independent.
Equipment and small home modifications — rails, ramps, shower stools and similar, where an assessment supports them.
What is not covered
Ordinary living costs: rent or mortgage, food, power, phone and internet, and general entertainment.
Things the health system pays for: hospital care, most GP and specialist visits, and medicines covered by the PBS.
Fees, holidays, gambling, and anything for another member of the household rather than for you.
Where something sits close to the line — a big annual garden clean-up, say, rather than keeping a path clear and safe — the answer depends on your assessment and your plan. A provider should tell you before doing the work, not invoice you afterwards and let you argue it with the department.
Questions
There is subsidised help rather than free help, for most people. The government pays the larger share and you contribute according to your means, which is worked out from an income assessment. Some people contribute very little. The Commonwealth Home Support Programme also provides lower-level help at modest cost, and is often where people start.
Your assessment sets what you are approved for, and your care plan sets how the funding is used within that. You have a real say in the plan — it is meant to be built with you, not handed to you — but it has to stay inside what the programme covers.
Want to hear from us when we are approved?
Join the waiting list. It costs nothing, commits you to nothing, and is not a service agreement — and if you need help before then, we will point you to someone who can give it.