By Steve Hadfield, AgedCareActionPlan.au · Last updated: 17 June 2026
CHSP and Support at Home don't just differ in "how much" — they differ in how the money flows, who controls it, and what it costs you.
Under CHSP, the government pays providers directly through block grant funding — a lump sum allocated to the provider organisation, not to you as an individual. Your provider delivers services from that pool. You pay a co-contribution toward each service, set by the provider according to the CHSP Client Contribution Framework. There's no nationally fixed rate — fees vary between providers. Hardship provisions are required, and you can't be denied services for inability to pay.
Under Support at Home, you're assigned a classification (1 through 8) based on assessed need, and each classification carries an individual quarterly budget. At Classification 3, that's $5,491 per quarter. At Classification 4, $7,424. That budget is yours — allocated every three months, directed toward approved services of your choosing.
But here's what the "more funding" framing leaves out. Under Support at Home, 10% of your quarterly budget is deducted as a care management fee before a dollar reaches your care. At Classification 3, that's $549 per quarter your provider takes for managing your care plan. Under CHSP's grant-funded model, there is no equivalent individual-budget percentage — because there's no individual budget for a percentage to apply to.
On top of the care management fee, Support at Home charges means-tested contributions that differ across three service categories. The government publishes the rates clearly:
| Pension status | Clinical care | Independence | Everyday Living |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full pensioner | 0% | 5% | 17.5% |
| Part pensioner / CSHC holder | 0% | 5–50% | 17.5–80% |
| Self-funded retiree | 0% | 50% | 80% |
Source: Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing — Support at Home participant contributions. Rates effective from 1 November 2025. From 1 October 2026, personal care services become fully government-funded (0% contribution for all participants).
This matters because the shift from CHSP to Support at Home isn't just "more help." It's a completely different financial model — one that gives you more services but also introduces costs that didn't exist before. Whether you come out ahead depends on your pension status, your income and assets, and the services you actually use.
This section isn't about accusing providers of acting badly — most don't. It's about understanding a structural incentive that exists whether or not anyone exploits it.
Under CHSP, your provider receives block grant funding from the government regardless of your individual care plan. Under Support at Home, your provider receives 10% of your individual quarterly budget as a care management fee, plus fees for each service delivered. The more funding attached to your classification, the more your provider earns.
When a CHSP provider suggests you might benefit from a reassessment, they may be right — and often are. But you should know that the outcome also changes how they're paid. An independent assessment of whether your needs have genuinely increased is the basis of that decision — not your provider's recommendation alone. My Aged Care, not your provider, initiates and manages the reassessment process. Call them directly on 1800 200 422.
The reassessment trigger isn't vague — it's needs-based. You can't request to "upgrade" from CHSP to Support at Home because you'd like more funding. An assessor has to find your needs have genuinely increased. Government guidance is clear on this: increased needs is the trigger, not preference.
But "needs have increased" is a phrase families don't know how to measure against their own situation. Here's a practical self-check — based on the areas the Integrated Assessment Tool covers — to help you decide whether the call is warranted.
Ask yourself whether any of these have changed significantly in the last 6 to 12 months:
Daily functioning
Can they still shower, dress, prepare meals, and manage toileting independently — or has the help needed to do these things increased? If a task that used to be manageable now requires someone else present every time, that's a change worth documenting.
Mobility and falls
Have falls or near-misses become more frequent? Have they stopped going outside, stopped using stairs, or started holding furniture to walk? Falls are scored by frequency, not just severity — two minor falls a month matters more to the assessment than one serious fall six months ago.
Cognition
Are they missing medications, repeating questions, getting confused about time or familiar places, leaving the stove on? Specific incidents with dates carry weight in an assessment. "Getting a bit forgetful" doesn't.
Carer capacity
Has the person who was helping become unable to continue — through burnout, illness, or a change in their own circumstances? A carer who can no longer cope is itself a trigger for reassessment.
Safety at home
Is there a genuine risk that wasn't there before — wandering, inability to call for help, medication errors with real consequences?
If you can point to specific, dated incidents in any of these areas, that's the basis for a call to My Aged Care. If the changes are more gradual and harder to pin down, talk to the person's GP — a supporting letter documenting functional decline strengthens any reassessment request significantly.
Step 1: Call My Aged Care on 1800 200 422 and say: "My needs have changed since my last assessment — I want to request a reassessment." Be ready with specific incidents and dates.
Step 2: Before the assessor visits, use the assessment preparation tool to generate a printable written statement covering every area the IAT scores. Families who bring documented, worst-day examples consistently receive more accurate classifications than those who answer from memory on the day. It takes about 15 minutes.
Step 3: Read the section below — what actually changes if you move — before you sign anything. The transition involves five simultaneous shifts, and knowing them in advance prevents the most common surprises.
Most content about this transition says "you'll get more funding." That's true, but incomplete. Here's what actually changes at once — and no other source lists them together.
1. Your fee structure changes completely
CHSP's provider-set co-contributions are replaced by means-tested contributions across three service categories, plus the 10% care management fee. A full pensioner using domestic assistance currently pays whatever their CHSP provider charges per occasion. On Support at Home, they'd pay 17.5% of the service cost for the same cleaning — plus 10% of their entire quarterly budget for care management. A self-funded retiree pays 80% of Everyday Living service costs. Whether you pay more or less overall depends on your pension status, income, and services used.
One significant change ahead: from 1 October 2026, personal care services — help with showering, dressing, grooming — become fully government-funded for all participants. If you're moving to Support at Home after that date, one of the largest Independence service categories will cost you nothing.
2. Your existing CHSP services in overlapping areas generally stop
Once you're on Support at Home, your Support at Home budget is expected to cover those needs. The government allows CHSP access alongside Support at Home only in limited, specific circumstances — pre-existing social group activities, emergency access, and a small number of other exceptions. Five in total. This catches families off guard. You may need to re-engage the same services through your Support at Home provider, and there can be a gap while that's arranged.
3. You gain an individual quarterly budget — but your provider takes a percentage of it
At Classification 3, the quarterly budget is $5,491. After the 10% care management fee ($549), $4,942 is available for services — before your own contributions. For context, that budget translates to roughly 15–18 hours of support per week, depending on provider pricing. The classifications in hours guide maps every classification to approximate service hours.
4. You enter a 56-day activation window
From the date of your funding letter (not the outcome letter — a critical distinction), you have 56 days to select a provider and sign a service agreement. Miss this window and your funding allocation can lapse. The 56-day activation guide explains the mechanics and what to do if you're running short.
5. Your provider may change
Not all CHSP providers are registered to deliver Support at Home services. If your current provider doesn't deliver Support at Home, you'll need to find one that does — which means a new relationship, a new service agreement, and potentially different workers. For someone whose parent has built trust with a specific support worker over months or years, this is the emotional weight of the transition. Check with your current provider before the reassessment, not after.
If you're approved for a Support at Home classification but waiting for full funding allocation, interim funding at 60% of your classification budget can start while you wait. This is designed to prevent a gap between losing CHSP and receiving Support at Home — but you need to ask My Aged Care about it specifically. Don't wait for it to be offered.
Not every CHSP recipient should be moving toward Support at Home. If your needs genuinely haven't changed — the cleaning, the meals, the transport are covering what you need and nothing has deteriorated — then CHSP is the correct program for your situation. It's not a consolation prize or a waiting room. It's the program designed for entry-level support, and if that's what you need, it's doing its job.
A reassessment that finds no change in needs won't move you to Support at Home, and shouldn't. Requesting one when nothing has changed wastes your time and an assessor's time, and doesn't produce a different outcome.
The question isn't "can I get more?" It's "have my needs changed enough that what I'm getting isn't sufficient?" If the answer is yes, call. If the answer is no, keep going — and revisit if circumstances change.
Most people don't know which program they're on because both feel the same on the ground — a worker turns up, does the cleaning, leaves. The system distinction only becomes visible if you go looking for it.
Log into your My Aged Care online account. Support at Home shows a classification number (1 to 8) and a quarterly budget figure on your dashboard. CHSP shows a list of approved service types with no budget figure attached — because there isn't one.
Or call My Aged Care on 1800 200 422 and say: "Am I currently on CHSP or Support at Home?" The operator can confirm it immediately from your client record.
CHSP will transition to Support at Home no earlier than 1 July 2027 — the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing's published position, repeated across every CHSP transition document. Nothing about your current services changes before then. The transition is designed as a staged handover so existing CHSP clients aren't disrupted.
The "no earlier than" phrasing matters. It's a floor, not a deadline. The same caution applies here as it did to the individual service price caps, which were planned for 1 July 2026 and were deferred indefinitely in May 2026. Treat 1 July 2027 as the earliest possible date, not a fixed one.
If you're on CHSP and things feel stable — the services you have are covering what you need — there's nothing to do. Keep going, and revisit this if anything changes.
If you're on CHSP and the gap between what you're getting and what you actually need has been growing — more falls, slower recovery, a carer who's stretched thin — the next move is the phone call above, not more research. Reassessments aren't won by waiting for the system to notice. They're won by calling and stating specific, dated examples.
If you've just been told you're moving to a Support at Home classification, or you're preparing for the reassessment conversation, that's exactly the moment families make expensive mistakes — accepting the first provider explanation of a fee, missing the funding letter's 56-day clock, not knowing what the new quarterly budget actually buys. The Complete System walks through exactly what to check, what to ask your provider, and what the classification means in dollars and hours, before you sign anything. Get the Complete System — $97 →
| CHSP | Support at Home | |
|---|---|---|
| Funding model | Government block grant to provider — no individual client budget | Individual quarterly budget tied to your assessed classification (1–8) |
| Assessment | Entry-level assessment via My Aged Care | Full assessment via Single Assessment System (Integrated Assessment Tool) |
| What it covers | Domestic help, meals, transport, basic allied health, social support | Everything CHSP covers, plus nursing, equipment, home modifications, significantly more hours |
| Client fees — structure | Provider-set co-contributions per service occasion (varies; hardship provisions required) | Means-tested contributions across three categories + 10% care management fee |
| Client fees — rates | No nationally fixed rate; each provider sets fees within the CHSP Client Contribution Framework | Clinical 0% · Independence 5–50% · Everyday Living 17.5–80% (depends on pension status and income/assets) |
| Care management fee | N/A — no individual budget for a percentage to apply to | Capped at 10% of quarterly budget (e.g. $549/quarter at Classification 3) |
| How you move between them | N/A — does not escalate automatically | Reassessment via My Aged Care, triggered only by genuinely increased needs |
| What happens to existing services | N/A | CHSP services in overlapping areas generally stop; SaH budget covers those needs |
| Current status | Continues unchanged until at least 1 July 2027 | Running since 1 November 2025 (replaced Home Care Packages) |
From 1 October 2026, personal care services under Support at Home become fully government-funded (0% contribution for all participants). All classification budget figures effective from 1 November 2025, indexed each July — check the Schedule of Subsidies and Supplements for current figures after July 2026.
Not sure if a reassessment is warranted? Prepare a written statement covering all key assessment areas — ready to hand to the assessor.
No. CHSP continues as normal for existing clients, with funding confirmed through at least 30 June 2027 and a transition to Support at Home set for no earlier than 1 July 2027. No action is required to keep your current services.
In most cases, your CHSP services in overlapping areas stop — your Support at Home budget is expected to cover those needs instead. The government allows CHSP alongside Support at Home only in limited circumstances, such as pre-existing social group participation and emergency access. Check with your provider before the reassessment about how the handover will work in practice.
No. A move only happens through a reassessment, and a reassessment only results in a Support at Home classification if an assessor finds your care needs have genuinely increased. If that sounds like your situation, the self-check section in this guide can help you decide whether the call is warranted.
Look for concrete, specific changes: new falls, a new diagnosis, a hospital admission, your usual carer no longer able to manage, or a genuine safety risk at home. If you can name a specific incident with a date, that's worth raising with My Aged Care on 1800 200 422. The assessment preparation tool on this site can help you organise the evidence.
It can. Support at Home introduces a care management fee capped at 10% of your quarterly budget, plus means-tested contributions that differ by service category and pension status. Full pensioners pay 5% for Independence services and 17.5% for Everyday Living. Self-funded retirees pay up to 50% and 80% respectively. Clinical care — nursing, physiotherapy — remains fully government-funded at 0%. From 1 October 2026, personal care also becomes fully government-funded. The care management fee check on this site shows the exact impact at each classification level.
You can request an internal review within 28 days. The escalation ladder guide on this site sets out who to contact, what to say, and how to strengthen a review request.
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This guide is for information only — not legal, medical, or financial advice. Verified against the Aged Care Act 2024 and Aged Care Rules 2025. Check myagedcare.gov.au for current rates and rules.