In November 2025, continue to submit and settle all Home Care Package claims monthly for care delivered to 31 October 2025. From December 2025, you will be able to claim as needed, up to daily, to ensure regular cash flow.
Claim and payment process
The process to receive payment for Support at Home services has 6 steps:
- You prepare a claim (including working out the claim amount).
- You submit the claim.
- Services Australia checks the claim.
- Services Australia processes the payment.
- You receive the payment.
- You send an invoice to the participant for their contribution (if any).
What you can claim
You can only claim for a service if it meets all of the following:
- It is an approved service in the participant’s Notice of Decision.
- It is agreed in the participant’s care plan.
- You are registered to provide it (see registration categories).
- You have already delivered it, while the participant was in your care.
You must not claim for a service if you have not delivered it.
Preparing the claim
You must list the services you have delivered during the claim period, including:
- care management
- assistive technology
- home modifications.
You must:
- claim the agreed unit price of the service and the delivered units of the service, even if this exceeds the available funding
- be accurate in your claiming
- claim through the relevant service delivery branch’s National Approved Provider System Service ID
- make sure you claim against the correct funding source
- keep evidence of all services and purchase, including any delivered by third parties.
Funding sources
Services Australia holds government funding accounts and amounts on behalf of the participant.
You must claim against the correct funding source. Depending on what the participant is approved for, sources can include the:
- quarterly ongoing funding account
- assistive technology account
- home modifications account
- Restorative Care Pathway account
- End-of-Life Pathway account
- care management account.
For participants who transitioned from the Home Care Packages (HCP) Program, you must claim against their Commonwealth portion of unspent HCP funds, in the following order:
- provider-held portion (may apply to HCP care recipients from before 1 September 2021)
- government-held portion (in the home care account held by Services Australia).
You will need to indicate when claiming against your provider-held portion. Services Australia will then validate the claim.
Assistive Technology and Home Modifications (AT-HM) scheme
When claiming for high tier assistive technology or home modifications, you must include a final invoice for the item and services (including GST). This invoice must be itemised if it includes more than one item or service.
You can also claim progressive payments for home modifications over time, as needed.
Find out more about the AT-HM scheme.
When to submit
For ongoing services, you have up to 60 days after the last day of the quarter to submit a claim. The quarterly deadlines are:
- 30 May – for the January to March quarter
- 29 August – for the April to June quarter
- 29 November – for the July to September quarter
- 1 March (29 February in leap years) – for the October to December quarter.
For the AT-HM scheme, Restorative Care Pathway and End-of-Life Pathway, you have up to 60 days after the end of the episode or allocation period to submit a claim.
For the care management account, you have maximum 60 days after the last day of the previous financial year to finalise outstanding claims (i.e. 29 August).
If a participant exits Support at Home, you have up to 60 days after the exit date to submit a claim.
Exceptions to deadlines
If you cannot meet the above claiming deadlines, you can request an exception by contacting Services Australia’s provider enquiry line.
Services Australia may approve your request in certain circumstances, such as technical issues or staff shortages.
Frequency of claims
From December 2025, you can decide how often you claim for ongoing services. This could be:
- daily
- weekly
- fortnightly
- monthly
- quarterly
- any period of your choosing (as long as it is before the claiming deadline).
You can change the frequency of your claims at any time.
Once you have submitted a claim, you cannot submit any more claims until that claim has been approved by Services Australia. However, you can continue uploading invoices into the Aged Care Provider Portal.
How to submit
You can submit a claim through either:
- the Aged Care Provider Portal
- your organisation’s business-to-government (B2G) software.
You can either:
- submit individual claims for each participant
- do bulk imports to claim for multiple participants.
To find out more, read the submitting claims to the Aged Care Provider Portal user guide.
Validation
If your claim is not valid, you will get an error message in the Aged Care Provider Portal. You must fix the issues before you can resubmit a claim.
We also run program assurance activities to identify unusual claim patterns or amounts. This may trigger a review that you must cooperate with.
Payment
After receiving a claim, Services Australia expects to process and pay the claim within 7 days.
Services Australia will:
- calculate any participant contribution
- deduct the government-funded amount and any participant contribution from the participant’s budget
- pay you the government-funded amount from the relevant account
- confirm the participant contribution amount that is due (if any) so you can invoice them directly.
Care management funding
To fund care management activities for ongoing services, Services Australia will:
- deduct 10% for care management from each participant’s quarterly budget
- pool the amounts at the service delivery branch level
- credit the pooled funding (and any care management supplement that your participants are eligible for) to your care management account on the first day of each quarter.
Services Australia will deduct the cost of care management services in your claim from this account.
For the Restorative Care Pathway and End-of-Life Pathway, you will need to claim care management activities against the participant’s funding account for that pathway.
Find out more about funding for care management.
Overspend
If there is an overspend, Services Australia will pay up to the level of budget remaining in the participant’s account. The provider must then decide how to manage the overspend.
Resources
- Support at Home: Claims and Payments Business Rules Guidance
- Support at Home User Guide – submitting claims to the Aged Care Provider Portal
- Submit a Support at Home claim.
Find out more
Read Chapter 16 (provider claiming and payment arrangements) in the Support at Home program manual.