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Why home care providers need to consolidate suppliers and pre-book visits under Support at Home
Support at Home is encouraging home care providers to rethink how they manage procurement and finance.
Traditional purchase order systems and supplier management practices weren’t designed for the high-volume, small-vendor reality of home care. Left unchanged, they can create administrative headaches, compliance risks, and missed revenue, especially when services are delivered by thousands of small, independent suppliers.
So, what should providers do differently? According to Ben Woolley, CEO at Redmap, there are two critical moves that every provider must make to get SAH-ready: consolidate suppliers and pre-book visits.
“If providers are accountable for the compliance of every supplier, even those chosen directly by clients, unmanaged supplier lists become a major risk,” Ben explained.
These two strategies are not just compliance measures. They are operational levers that give providers visibility, control, and efficiency in a complex and rapidly changing landscape.
Why traditional procurement doesn’t work in home care
There are three main reasons traditional procurement processes can hold home care organisations back:
- Late invoices: Redmap data shows 75% of invoices received across 29 providers had no linked visit at the time of processing. Many arrive 60–90 days after the service a time that is outside the Support at Home claim period.
- Confused ownership. Traditional procurement projects are often run by finance, but as Ben said, “providers need to make sure that the care team is a core stakeholder in any of those decisions.”
- Patchy supplier compliance. With thousands of small suppliers, many sending invoices at odd hours or forgetting POs, enforcing compliance is nearly impossible.
The combined effect is missed revenue, manual rework, and higher compliance risk.
Two strategies to rethink procurement under Support at Home
1.Consolidate your suppliers to reduce risk
Under Support at Home, providers are ultimately responsible for supplier compliance, even for vendors chosen by clients. That makes unmanaged supplier lists a major operational and regulatory risk.
Ben Woolley explains: “Taking control of supplier consolidation is a mandatory operational requirement. Under the Act, it won’t be possible to make sure that every single supplier you deal with is compliant unless you proactively manage that list.”
Consolidating suppliers:
- Simplifies onboarding and compliance tracking
- Strengthens relationships with key vendors
- Reduces administrative burden and errors
- Maintains client choice while focusing on reliable, compliant suppliers
One example from Uniting NSW showed that in one region, lawn mowing services were consolidated to a single trusted provider covering 97% of cases — reducing compliance risk while still respecting client choice.
How Uniting NSW got finance & procurement processes SAH ready
2. Pre-book visits to gain visibility and control
Pre-booking visits is essentially the home care equivalent of raising a purchase order. By scheduling services in advance within AlayaCare, providers gain:
- Budget visibility: see what spend is coming and how it impacts client budgets
- Revenue protection: link visits to invoices to ensure claims fall inside the SAH window
- Compliance alignment: control over scheduled services, reducing missed or misaligned invoices
As Ben put it: “Pre-booking visits is the equivalent of raising a PO. It gives providers visibility, tighter controls, and alignment with the new claiming rules.”
AlayaCare’s upcoming features will enhance this further, providing a live graph of each participant’s quarterly budget that updates nightly from Services Australia — helping providers see exactly what’s committed, delivered, and remaining.
Automation: the supporting tool
While not the main focus, automation plays an important role in supporting these two strategies. Integrating AlayaCare with Redmap reduces manual touches, flags exceptions automatically, and accelerates invoice processing.
“One enterprise client reduced invoice processing time from 10 minutes to 30 seconds,” Ben shared.
By automating routine tasks, providers can focus on strategy, compliance, and care delivery instead of chasing invoices.
Want to learn more? Watch Ben Woolley discuss automation in our webinar below.
