Support at Home transition driving urgent need for streamlining manual processes

Home care providers will likely face increased pressure on their bottom line as they transition to the new Support at Home program by 1 July 2025. Providers will face a 10% cap on care management fees under the new system, with details of the changes shared at the Support at Home program update – Webinar last week. 

With the reduction in care management fees and the bundling of package management and administrative costs into the new Service Catalogue pricing, providers will face increasing challenges in service provision. Reducing administrative burdens will be essential to maximise face-to-face hours and case management. Improved care management technology will be crucial in achieving this balance and will play an integral role in supporting providers to deliver effective care while meeting minimum care management hours, and not exceeding the prescriptive cap. 

Annette Hili, General Manager of AlayaCare ANZ, states that while the government has provided some clarity about how providers will be supported to transition to the new Support at Home system, many uncertainties remain. 

“Providers need to know: how can they best prepare their teams to manage this intensive transition period? This is a difficult question to answer, as there is still so much unknown about the nuances of the new program.” 

She continues, “What we do know is that the pressure will increase on operating margins as they begin working with the new 10% cap. Now, more than ever, they will need to find efficiencies by automating the workflows and tasks that they may have been doing manually.” 

Ross Gallagher, Executive General Manager – Home Care & Retirement Living at IRT and AlayaCare customer, agrees. 

“This significant change as a result of the Support at Home program will require us to review our current operating model and consider how we can use technology, process re-design and automation to make our life easier.”  

But we’re still understanding the full extent of the impact, and once we have more details from the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority, then we’ll be able to drill down into the specifics.” 

Thilan Perera, VP Customer Success at AlayaCare, notes that this wary sentiment of the implications Support at Home will have on home care teams is shared by many providers. 

“There’s no doubt that providers will benefit from increased funding and support in this sector. What we must make sure is that, like the government has promised for participants, providers will also be No Worse Off.” 

“From our perspective, technology is fundamental to easing this transition. But the most integral element is ensuring that the staff who operate the technology feel supported, empowered and engaged as they undertake this huge shift in care requirements. At AlayaCare, we have already increased our investment in growing our teams to support our customers meet the new demands placed on them. To ensure we are ready we have, in the past 12 months, doubled our local customer success team and expanded our Australian development team.”