Step 1. Contact My Aged Care

Call 1800 200 422 or register online at myagedcare.gov.au. You can do this on behalf of your elderly parent. The screening questions will ask about their age, residency, and the home care support they need.

My Aged Care is the government gateway to all aged care services in Australia, including Support at Home, and every older Australian must go through it to access government funded home care.

Step 2. Referral for assessment

After screening, My Aged Care refers your parent for a face to face needs assessment. The type of assessment depends on their aged care needs.

For lower level needs, a Regional Assessment Service assessor will visit. For more complex aged care needs, an Aged Care Assessment Team conducts a more detailed assessment. Both happen at your parent’s home, in their own environment, where the assessor can see the reality of how they are living day to day.

Step 3. The assessment visit   

     
An assessor visits your parent at home to understand what personal care, nursing care at home, domestic assistance, respite care, dementia support, medication management, and other home care services they need to continue ageing in place safely.

The assessor will look at physical health, mobility, cognitive function, mental wellbeing, falls risk, safety around the home, social connection, and what support is already in place from family carers or existing home care providers.

The one tip most families miss. Encourage your parent to be honest about their hard days, not just their good ones. Many older Australians and seniors understate their needs during assessment because they do not want to seem like they cannot cope. This can result in a lower support classification than they actually need. If your parent struggles on some days but manages on others, the assessor needs to hear about both.

You can be present during the assessment. You should be if possible.

Step 4. The outcome

After the assessment, your parent receives an outcome letter that explains what level of Support at Home funding they qualify for. This is based on their assessed aged care needs, not their income.

If your parent is approved, they move to the next step, choosing an approved aged care provider to deliver their home care services.

If your parent is not approved or receives a lower classification than expected, they can request a review. They can also be reassessed through My Aged Care at any time as their needs change.

Step 5. Choose your aged care provider

This is where the assessment result becomes real home care. Your parent chooses which approved aged care provider will deliver their personal care, nursing care at home, domestic assistance, and other home care services across Melbourne, regional Victoria, Tasmania, or anywhere in Australia.

The funding follows your parent, not the provider. They can change their home care provider at any time if the aged care services do not meet their needs.

When choosing, ask about aged care workforce size, continuity of care, carer matching, and how quickly home care visits can start. A home care provider with a large aged care specific workforce will deliver more consistent, reliable in home care than a provider stretching a small aged care team across too many home care clients.

What Chris Barnard Health does after your assessment

Chris Barnard Health is an approved aged care provider and registered NDIS provider delivering Support at Home and home care services across Melbourne, regional Victoria, and Tasmania. Once your parent is approved, we move quickly. Our aged care specific workforce of more than 1,000 aged care professionals means we assess needs, match the right care worker, and start reliable home care visits as fast as your family needs.

We started as a specialist nursing agency in 2010. Getting home care started after assessment is what our workforce was built to do.

Call 1300 602 469 after your parent’s assessment. It is what Melbourne’s leading and largest aged care specific workforce was built for. So the gap between assessment and actual home care is as short as possible.