Self Managed Home Care Packages
When you have been allocated a Home Care Package you have a choice regarding the Provider to help manage your package and also if you wish to Self Manage or have the Provider fully manage and arrange all services for you.
Self Managing provides you freedom and choice regarding how your funding is spent on services and purchasing, including choosing your own support workers and when they come and the types of aids you may need. This is done in consultation with your Provider. You will pay lower fees which allows more services, however it does take time and a good understanding of all the factors involved.
Home Care Packages (HCP) are one of the ways that the Australian Government helps older Australians access affordable care services to get some help to remain independent at home. Approved aged care service providers work with care recipients to plan, organise and deliver Home Care Packages. The recipients of these packages need to be heard regarding the aims, design, implementation and actual lived experience of the services provided.
Support In Home
Why Self Manage in-home aged care?
Lesley takes control of her aged care
Choice and flexibility are the main reasons Lesley Forster chooses to self-manage her home care package. A self-managed package means she not only has control over who comes into her home, but also when they come and what they do for her.
Webinar - Self-managing your aged care packages
OPAN 17th July 2023
In this webinar our panel discuss self-management, which enables you to play a more active role in your aged care. By self-managing aged care packages, you may have more choice, control and flexibility over the way your aged care funds are spent.
The future of self management: our decision
OPAN Reports Dec 2022
What does self-management for recipients of in-home aged care provide?
A. Choice and control over:
1. WHEN needed services are required to be provided, on a convenient day and suitable time that has flexibility to be changed at short notice, if need be, with arrangements made directly between the recipient of the service and the support worker or specific service provider, without it having to be organised through the aged care provider or case manager, which would delay the process or even not be possible, the latter being what happens when managed.
2. WHAT the needed services are to be provided on a specific day and time. The recipient may need to have one of the assessed and approved services provided urgently and/or more often over a week, which can be negotiated with the specific service provider/support worker directly without having to abide by a given schedule or having to seek “permission” from the aged care provider, as long as it is all done within the approved parameters of weekly funding or time allowances.
3. WHERE to purchase needed goods and equipment as identified in the care plan and budget, instead of having to obtain those goods and services from the care provider’s selected sources, which may not always be the most suitable and/or best priced.
4. HOW to best utilise the funding/hours allocated and available to best address the needs of the recipients based on their own decisions not as decided by someone else who does not and cannot fully understand or appreciate how best to meet the identified need. Including making choices that may involve personal risk.
B: Autonomy and Independence are necessary elements to build self esteem. Self esteem produces a feeling of well-being and reduces the sense of being devalued, ignored, a burden, which regrettably is being experienced by older people facing rampant ageism.
It is a basic right and the corner stone of our democracy to be able to make decisions about our own lives as long as it isn’t to the detriment of others. As per item 2 in the charter of aged care rights dignity and respect flow on through having the right to make choices about care and support provision, personal and social life, including where choices involve personal risk.
“The satisfaction of getting value for money and achieving goals set by me, without being dictated to by others who believe they know best about my own life, and who are allowed to make decisions for me not with me, regardless, that ultimately impact my day to day living and well-being."
Self management of In home aged care that is meant to be Consumer Centric is about achieving the desirable goals the best way possible, which should be set through co-designed guidelines with recipients in accordance with the principles of the charter of aged care rights”.
M.O. 2023
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