1. Understand, build awareness and brief stakeholders

You are responsible for ensuring your organisation and stakeholders understand the change and its implications before 1 October 2026. 

There are 5 actions you should take to achieve this:

1. Understand and communicate the change 
2. Engage your ICT team and/or software vendor
3. Identify affected participants
4. Subscribe to updates, stay informed and communicate changes
5. Attend information sessions for providers.

1.1 Understand and communicate the change (Now)

• Read the personal care contribution change guidance for providers
• Brief staff about the change. You should communicate the change to leaders and operational staff, including care partners, ICT teams and software vendors. Ensure they understand:
  • personal care scope does not change
  • approvals and eligibility still apply
  • only participant contribution arrangements are changing.

1.2 Engage your ICT team and/or software vendor (Now)

• Inform your ICT team and/or software vendor that:
  • from 1 October 2026, personal care services are moving to the Clinical Supports contribution category 
  • participants will no longer pay contributions for these services.
• Advise that systems configuration updates will be required by the implementation date of 1 October.
• Confirm with ICT teams and vendors:
  • delivery timelines for system changes
  • dependencies on other systems
  • risks of delayed or incomplete delivery.

Further information on preparing ICT systems is provided in Step 4.

1.3 Identify affected participants (Now)

• Identify participants who currently receive personal care services, or who may be affected by the removal of personal care contributions. 
• Use available participant information such as care plans, service delivery records and other relevant information to determine who may require communication, care planning, budget updates or service agreement reviews.  

1.4 Subscribe to updates, stay informed and communicate changes (Now)

• Subscribe to the Your Aged Care Update (YACU) newsletter.
• Engage in the Support at Home Community of Practice.
• Monitor updates on health.gov.au and My Aged Care.

You should also plan how you will communicate these reform updates, guidance and implementation across your organisation and with participants.

1.5 Attend information sessions for providers (Now)

• Attend regular provider-only information sessions to track your implementation progress.
• Use these sessions to clarify real-world implementation issues, such as system constraints, billing scenarios and service agreement updates, and clarify readiness expectations and timelines