Update for 1 July 2026
SCHADS Award minimum rates rose 4.75% in the Fair Work Commission Annual Wage Review, effective from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. Every rate, penalty, and allowance on this page reflects the new figures.
Teiro keeps SCHADS rates current automatically, so your rosters, quotes, and pay never run on last year’s figures.
What changed on 1 November 2025
From 1 November 2025, the Support at Home program became the primary funding vehicle for home-based aged care services in Australia, after commencement was deferred from an earlier planned date of 1 July 2025. It replaced two existing programs:
- Home Care Packages (HCP): the tiered package model (Levels 1 through 4) was replaced in full by Support at Home.
- Short-Term Restorative Care (STRC): also replaced by Support at Home.
Important: CHSP was not replaced by Support at Home. The Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) continues under its existing service and funding arrangements, now scheduled to transition to Support at Home on 1 July 2027 (CHSP funding itself was extended only to 30 June 2027). CHSP providers are not exempt from the broader reforms, though: they have been bound by the Aged Care Act 2024 since it commenced on 1 November 2025, and every CHSP client had to be registered with My Aged Care and assessed to keep receiving services.
The Aged Care Act 2024 provides the legislative foundation for Support at Home. The program is administered by the Department of Health and Aged Care, with Services Australia processing provider claims.
Change from 1 October 2026: personal care moves category
Personal care currently sits in the independence contribution category. From 1 October 2026, personal care moves from the independence category to the clinical supports category for contribution purposes. From that date, participants approved for personal care pay no contribution toward it.
Nothing else changes: the definition of personal care, the service IDs, the workforce delivering it and your registration category all stay the same. What changes is your service agreements, individualised budgets, monthly statements and invoicing, which is why the department has been working with software vendors on readiness. If your rostering and billing system hard-codes personal care as an independence-category service, it will produce wrong statements from that date.
The three service categories
Support at Home organises funded services into three service categories. Prices and billable units are set per service type on the Support at Home service list, not per category -- the three categories determine what the participant contributes, not what you charge. Providers must classify each service delivered against the correct category when submitting a claim.
| Service Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Clinical supports | Nursing, allied health, and other clinical services delivered in the home. Fully government-funded — participants pay no co-contribution. |
| Independence | Social support and community access, respite, and transport. Personal care sits here until 1 October 2026, when it moves to clinical supports. |
| Everyday living | Domestic assistance, home maintenance, and meal services. This category carries the highest participant co-contribution. |
Three further programs sit alongside the service categories rather than inside them. They are funded and claimed separately:
| Program | Description |
|---|---|
| AT-HM Scheme | The Assistive Technology and Home Modifications Scheme is funded separately from the quarterly budget, generally valid for 12 months. On the service list it sits within the independence contribution category. |
| Restorative Care Pathway | Short-term, intensive allied health and nursing support to regain function and independence, for up to 16 weeks. |
| End-of-Life Pathway | Extra in-home support for people with a palliative diagnosis of three months or less. Funded for 12 weeks and accessible for up to 16 weeks. A second round of funding for people who live beyond the initial 12 weeks commences early 2027. |
The service category determines the billable rate. Misclassification creates both compliance and financial risk. Providers must ensure shift records carry enough clinical context to support the correct service category classification at the time of claiming.
The AT-HM scheme sits outside the budget, not outside the categories. The AT-HM scheme is funded separately from the quarterly budget. Participants are approved for it separately, it has its own priority systems, and the funding is generally valid for 12 months. On the service list, assistive technology and home modifications sits within the independence contribution category, which is what determines what the participant pays toward it. Administration and coordination is capped at 10% of the cost or $500, whichever is lower, for assistive technology, and 15% or $1,500 for home modifications.
Care management is funded differently to everything else. Ten per cent of each participant's quarterly budget is set aside for it, and you claim care management against that pool as a service type in its own right, under the clinical supports contribution category. It is not additional money on top of the budget, and there is no separate care management budget line to grow. You must deliver at least one direct care management activity, meaning contact with the participant or their registered supporter, every month, even where the participant self-manages. This is a different model to the NDIS, where support coordination is funded as its own item in the plan rather than taken as a slice of the participant's other funding.
The number eight belongs to funding classification levels, not service categories. A new participant is assessed into one of eight classification levels, which sets the size of their quarterly budget. There are also four transitional Home Care Package classifications for people who moved across on 1 November 2025, preserving their previous funding level -- a provider whose book is mostly transitioned Home Care Package clients will never see one of the eight new-participant levels. The classification level decides how much budget a participant has; the service category decides what that budget can be spent on. The two are separate systems.
How billing works under Support at Home
Under Support at Home, providers deliver services to approved care recipients and claim from Services Australia at their published price. Services Australia subtracts any participant contribution and pays the balance from the participant's funding account, and you invoice the participant for their contribution directly. Providers do not invoice the participant directly for the government-funded portion of a service.
This model differs from the NDIS agency-managed model in one important practical respect: the claim goes to Services Australia, not the NDIA. Provider registration, claim submission processes, and the portal used are all specific to aged care.
Registration requirement
Only approved aged care providers can deliver and claim for Support at Home services. Organisations that are registered NDIS providers but not approved aged care providers cannot deliver Support at Home-funded services.
Providers set their own prices -- there is no price cap
Providers set their own prices for Support at Home services. The government has deferred the introduction of price caps until it has greater confidence in market stability, so there is currently no cap on what you can charge. Your prices must be reasonable, transparent and cost-based, and you must publish your most frequently charged price for every service you deliver on your own website and in the My Aged Care Service and Support Portal, reviewed at least every two months. The department and the Commission monitor billing data and refer unreasonable pricing for enforcement.
Prices are set per service, not per category
Prices and billable units are set per service type on the Support at Home service list, not per category. The three categories determine what the participant contributes, not what you charge. These arrangements are separate from NDIS price limits, which are set by the NDIA under a different framework.
Rostering implications
The service category model has a direct impact on how shift records need to be structured. Because billing is tied to the service type delivered, a shift that spans multiple service types may need to be recorded against more than one service, and therefore more than one category.
Shift records must support the claim
A shift record that simply notes time in and time out is not enough. The record must indicate what service category the activities delivered belong to. Clinical activities cannot be claimed under independence or everyday living rates, even if the same worker delivered both in the same visit.
Continuity of care remains a quality indicator
The Strengthened Quality Standards place explicit weight on person-centred care and consistent relationships. Rostering systems that do not surface worker-client history make it harder to demonstrate this in an audit or assessment.
24/7 RN requirement applies to residential, not home care
Support at Home is a home-based program. The 24/7 registered nurse requirement applies to residential aged care facilities only and does not apply to providers delivering Support at Home services.
How Support at Home differs from the NDIS
Providers operating across both programs need to hold both frameworks in parallel. The key practical differences for rostering and billing purposes:
| Aspect | Support at Home | NDIS |
|---|---|---|
| Funding body | Services Australia | NDIA |
| Claim process | Provider claims from Services Australia | Agency-managed, plan-managed, or self-managed |
| Service structure | Three contribution categories (clinical supports, independence, everyday living); providers set their own prices per service on the service list, no caps currently apply | Support categories with NDIS price limits |
| Care coordination | Care management: a service type funded from a 10% deduction off the quarterly budget, claimed like any other service | Support coordination: funded as its own item in the plan |
| Worker screening | National Police Check | NDIS Worker Screening Check |
| Regulator | Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission | NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission |
| Incident reporting | SIRS (P1: 24 hrs, P2: 30 days) | Reportable incidents to NDIS Q&S Commission |