Using your home care package entitlements
You’ve worked hard, spent wisely and saved up for a rainy day. These are all great habits regarding money, but they are not so wise regarding your home care entitlements.
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01 January 2021
Stories
| Home Care
You’ve worked hard, spent wisely and saved up for a rainy day. These are all great habits regarding money, but they are not so wise regarding your home care entitlements. Your support package is about living independently and well, so use it! Don’t wait for a crisis to hit. Put your health and independence first.
Remember the fable about the grasshopper and the ants? While the grasshopper spent the whole summer chirping away, the ants were busy storing food. When winter came, the ants had plenty to eat while the grasshopper went hungry.
It’s a great story about the virtues of saving and the importance of forward planning. Acting like ‘ants’ and saving money for cars, holidays and homes has helped generations of Australians get ahead and take control. Yet, the opposite is true when prioritising our health and independence. Here the saying of ‘fit your own mask first’ is much better applied.
A generation of savers, people receiving care at home services often feel they should hold onto their entitlements if they need them further down the track. Rather than having a home care services provider assist with washing, cleaning or cooking, they bravely soldier on alone so they can keep some credit in the ‘bank’.
This is a commendable sentiment when it comes to the financial lessons of life. Still, it puts older people at home or in aged care at risk of injury and loss of independence. Just as saving up the medication your doctor prescribed would be dangerous, saving up your home care support entitlements means missing out on prescribed care designed to make you safer, comfortable and more independent.
Here are five reasons why making full use of your home care entitlement now makes better sense than saving it for later:
The money is there to be spent
The very purpose of home care packages is to make it easier for elderly Australians with varying levels of care requirements to live independently in their own homes longer. To qualify for a package, you will have undergone an assessment through My Aged Care of your level of physical and mental health and living circumstances. The level of support and type of care at home services you are assigned reflects what qualified professionals believe you need to continue living independently. The expectation is that you will use this money. It is there for you to spend.
You could be adding to your life
While it is challenging to change the habits of a lifetime and accept that you could do with some extra help, there are enormous benefits from inviting others to step in and carry some of the load. You may be able to hang out heavy washing or give the bathroom a thorough clean if you take your time and don’t mind enduring a little pain to get it done, but there are other ways to stay physically active, engaged and independent. Why waste that energy and effort on tasks when you have a home care package to assist you? Plan, instead, to meet a friend, take the dog for a walk and tend your garden; by letting your personal or private in home care services provider do the heavy lifting, your independence can flourish.
Your flowers too! Getting assistance for those problematic tasks reduces the risk of injury to you and will enable you to carry on with the things you can do independently. Remember, support may be in helping you manage daily tasks and activities that enhance your day, or it could be some simple home modifications to tailor your living areas to your specific needs. Accessing help is not surrendering your independence – it enhances it. Your goals should be as individual as you – just let us know how we can help.
Home Care entitlements aren’t transferable
If your circumstances change and you move into, say, residential care, any care at home services subsidy credit you have accrued goes straight back to the government. You’ll never get the chance to use the credit you so carefully saved up, nor will you be able to enjoy the services and facilities you could have had access to. Similarly, your family isn’t entitled to claim any of your remaining subsidies if you pass away. Again, it goes straight back to the government without benefiting you or your family.
You’re paying anyway
Home care package providers are businesses and typically need to charge customers administrative fees for things like managing your package, generating your statements, and paying invoices on your behalf. Depending on your package and provider, you might also be paying a case management fee and client contribution fee. It makes no sense to be paying fees for a service you are not using. Entitlement flexibility of home caring services under the current “consumer-directed care” model means there is so much choice on what your funds can be used for and recognises that help and support look different for everyone – ask your provider to talk to you about the range of services available.
Spend your home care entitlement and focus on joy
Why don’t you recapture your wellbeing by arranging assistance to engage in recreational activities that are special to you and bring you a sense of joy? Life is still meant to be lived and lived to the full. You might want to participate in a social club, lawn bowls, tending to a raised garden bed, assistance with cooking to entertain a friend or the family, a visit to the library, or a new hobby. Why not? You could even access a therapy programme to keep you agile for longer. Wouldn’t you prefer to focus on participating in these things rather than proving you can still scrub the tub? Set your goals, think broadly about what will add the most value to your days and ask your Care Facilitator to help you work out how to get there.
Entitlements are designed to help people like you live long, healthy and fulfilling lives in your home. Your home is not an ant hill, spend now and make the most of your entitlement and your life.
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For us, it’s all about you. You are introduced to your own dedicated Care Facilitator who gets to know what is really important to you. This is your person. They will action and manage our friendly, multi-disciplinary care team and our wider network of quality service providers to meet your unique needs, wants and priorities.
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If you would like to know more, please contact us on 1300 275 227 or complete the enquiry form and one of our customer representatives will be in touch.