The Australian Government continues to support approved aged care providers with the additional costs associated with managing COVID-19 through the COVID-19 Aged Care Support Program Extension grant. The grant reimburses eligible Commonwealth funded, approved providers of residential and home care services for additional costs they have incurred due to managing a direct impact of COVID-19, between 28 May 2021 to 31 December 2022.
Providers should be aware that any costs incurred after 31 December 2022 are not eligible to be claimed under this Grant Opportunity
Closing date for applications
The closing date for applications for the grant is 2pm (AEDT) 31 March 2023. Providers are encouraged to make sure applications are submitted by the closing date. Late applications will not be accepted.
Please see the Grant Opportunity Guidelines and answers to Frequently Asked Questions on GrantConnect for further information.
Requests to vary applications that have already been approved for funding
Applicants with finalised claims who are seeking the Department to consider late costs (not included in the original claim), must request this by COB 31 March 2023. Any requests received after this time, will not be considered.
To request a consideration of late costs for a finalised claim, you must send an email to ACSPgrantpolicy@health.gov.au clearly providing the following information:
- name of the provider
- name of the service
- impact period for which you've applied
- application ID (from your outcome letter from the Department for this claim)
- submission reference number (located at the top of your application form)
- details of the additional costs you now seek to have considered
- a revised cost calculator that includes the original costs claimed and also captures these new costs
- a copy of any associated invoices related to the new costs being claimed
- confirmation that these additional costs have been paid in full.
The Department is prioritising the assessment of applications on hand from providers who have not yet received an outcome. A re-assessment of your claim will be undertaken after those applications have been assessed. We are unable to provide specific timing on when your re-assessment will occur but the Department will notify you of the outcome once completed.
2023 COVID-19 Aged Care Support Grant
The Australian Government has committed funding for the 2023 COVID-19 Aged Care Support Grant. The grant will continue to support eligible Commonwealth funded, approved providers of residential and home care services with costs they have incurred due to COVID-19 outbreaks (or COVID-19 impacted home care recipients) between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023.
If your outbreak started in late 2022 and included a COVID-19 positive resident, any eligible expenditure you have incurred from 1 January 2023 will need to be claimed under the 2023 COVID-19 Aged Care Support Grant.
When applying under the 2023 COVID-19 Aged Care Support Grant for an outbreak that commenced before and extended beyond 31 December 2022, the Department will consider the first positive resident case as the trigger, but only eligible costs from 1 January 2023 can be submitted and must align with the 2023 COVID-19 Aged Care Support Grant Opportunity Guidelines.
For further information about this upcoming Grant Opportunity, please see the draft Grant Opportunity Guidelines and draft frequently asked questions now available on GrantConnect.