By Steve Hadfield, AgedCareActionPlan.au · Last updated: 19 May 2026
Most families who self-manage their Support at Home package make two expensive mistakes before they read a guide like this. The first is finding the worker they want before notifying the provider — which means the worker waits through a compliance check they weren’t expecting and sometimes moves on. The second is building a budget around the worker’s hourly rate, not knowing that their provider charges an additional overhead on top. At $60 per hour for three sessions a week, that unplanned overhead costs over $900 a year.
Self-management gives you genuine control: who comes into the home, when, and at what rate. The Support at Home program — which replaced Home Care Packages on 1 November 2025 — is built around this right. But the setup has a specific sequence, and that sequence exists for compliance reasons, not bureaucracy.
Get it right and your preferred workers are in place within a fortnight. Get it wrong and you are chasing paperwork while your family member waits for care.
If you’re still deciding whether self-management is right for your family, read our self-management decision guide first. If you want to understand what self-management means before getting into the process, start with the full self-management guide. This piece is for families who have decided and need the exact steps.
Self-management means you choose and coordinate your own workers rather than having your provider arrange everything. Your registered provider remains responsible for compliance, processes your worker payments, and must deliver at least one care management activity per month — even for participants who self-manage. The 10% care management fee is deducted from your quarterly budget regardless.
What changes is worker selection and day-to-day coordination. That is where your autonomy lies.
Self-management also does not have to be all-or-nothing. You can self-manage some services and have your provider arrange others — documented in your care plan. A common arrangement: you manage the domestic assistance worker your mother already knows and trusts, while the provider arranges the nursing visit that requires clinical oversight. Start with what you have the bandwidth for. You can expand self-management later.
Before you start hiring workers, make sure you understand how your budget, care management fees, and contribution rates work — the Support at Home funding guide covers this in full.
Log into My Aged Care and confirm three things before any other conversation:
You need these numbers before talking to your provider or approaching any worker. They determine how many hours of support you can fund per week at any given hourly rate — and anchor every budget conversation that follows. Write them down. You will refer to them throughout this process.
Call or email your provider and tell them you want to move to self-managed delivery. Use this framing:
“I’d like to self-manage [specific service / all services] under my Support at Home package. I understand you’ll continue as my registered provider and process worker payments. Can you tell me what I need to provide to get started?”
That framing resolves the provider’s main concern before they raise it — you are confirming they retain care management and compliance responsibility, not that you are leaving. In most cases this is a straightforward request under the program’s consumer-directed design.
In this conversation, confirm four things:
If your provider refuses the self-management request without a specific reason, ask them to put that refusal in writing. A provider who will not accommodate self-management without a valid regulatory basis is worth reconsidering — you can switch providers at no exit cost under the Support at Home program.
This is the information most families discover after they have already committed to a worker and built a budget around their hourly rate.
Under the Support at Home program rules, your provider can charge an overhead on top of each third-party worker’s service cost. This overhead is capped at 10% of the actual cost of the service and is separate from the 10% care management fee already deducted from your quarterly budget.
In practice: if your self-managed worker charges $60 per hour, your provider may charge up to $6 per hour as a third-party overhead. Your budget is debited $66 per hour, not $60. For a worker doing three hours a week, that is $936 per year you did not account for if you built the budget on the worker’s rate alone.
Not every provider charges the full 10%. Some charge less. Some charge nothing. But you cannot plan your hours accurately without knowing your provider’s rate — which is why this conversation happens in Step 2, before you approach any worker.
The overhead covers the provider’s compliance responsibilities: verifying worker credentials, maintaining records, and processing claims. The provider remains liable for worker compliance even when you chose the worker. The charge is legitimate. It just needs to be in your budget from the start.
For a full breakdown of what comes out of your quarterly budget and in what order, see the Support at Home funding guide.
Your provider must verify that every worker you bring in meets the regulatory requirements under the Aged Care Act 2024 before they can start. They are not checking credentials as a formality — they are liable for compliance even for workers you chose.
Workers must have:
The provider can decline a specific worker only if that worker does not meet one of these regulatory requirements, and they must tell you the specific reason. They cannot decline without cause.
Where to find workers:
For a deeper look at finding workers for your self-managed package — including how Mable and Hireup compare and what to check before approaching anyone — see our dedicated guide.
One practical note: any worker you find — through a platform or your own network — will be paid through your provider’s payment system. The provider processes the claim; you do not pay the worker directly. Make sure the worker understands this arrangement before they agree to start. Some workers have not worked in self-managed packages before and expect direct payment.
Under the Aged Care Act 2024, your service agreement must reflect how your care is actually being delivered. If you are moving from provider-managed to self-managed delivery, the arrangement should be documented before care begins — not after the first invoice arrives.
Use our Agreement Checker to verify what should be in the agreement before you sign.
Key things to confirm are in the agreement:
The most common operational problem in the first month of self-management is payment delays — not because anything is wrong, but because no one confirmed the end-to-end process before Day 1.
Before your first worker’s first shift:
This five-minute conversation before Day 1 prevents the most common relationship problem in self-managed packages: a worker who did everything right and waited weeks to be paid because the submission process was not clear from the start.
Self-management is not a permanent commitment. If coordinating workers is taking more time or energy than your family expected, you can return to provider-managed delivery at any time — tell your provider, update your service agreement, and the coordination responsibility transfers back.
Most families who go through the setup process find the coordination lighter than they anticipated, particularly once workers are settled into a routine. The first fortnight is the hardest part. If it is still feeling unmanageable at week six, return to provider-managed and review whether a partial arrangement — self-managing only one or two specific supports — works better for your situation.
Many families on Support at Home find fees on their quarterly statement they didn’t agree to — care management charges, third-party overheads, or service costs that don’t match their agreement. The Navigator’s monthly statement review catches these before the quarter ends, when there’s still time to act.
Get the NavigatorLast updated: 19 May 2026. Sources: Department of Health and Aged Care — Support at Home self-management, worker screening requirements (retrieved May 2026); myagedcare.gov.au.
Yes. Self-management looks different for each participant under the Support at Home program. You can self-manage specific services — for example, arranging your own domestic assistance worker while your provider arranges nursing supports — and document the arrangement in your care plan. There is no all-or-nothing requirement.
The Support at Home program is built on consumer-directed care. Most providers will accommodate a self-management request. If yours declines, ask for the specific reason in writing. A refusal without a valid regulatory basis is grounds to consider switching providers — you can do so at no exit cost under the program.
Most families complete the process in one to two weeks. The main variable is how quickly workers can provide their compliance documentation — police certificate, insurance, any professional registration — to the provider for verification.
Under the Support at Home program, providers can charge up to 10% of the cost of a third-party worker's service as an overhead. This is separate from the 10% care management fee already deducted from your quarterly budget. Not every provider charges the maximum — ask your provider what rate they charge before you build your budget.
Only if the worker does not meet a specific regulatory requirement — police certificate, required professional registration, or insurance. The provider must tell you the specific reason. They cannot decline a worker simply because they did not source them.
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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.