My elderly aunt’s husband has Alzheimer’s and she is wheelchair bound most of the time. She had a RAS assessment via a my aged care assessor and will receive some CHSP support at home via the council. However she wants to access the Commonwealth home care package scheme via a government provider that does not have CHSP status- the provider told her that when her CHSP package concludes, she can then access their provider care. As CHSP will be phased out in 2020, and providers are no longer being allowed to apply for CHSP to provide care under CHSP. We are all a bit confused by this, can you shed some light on how this works?
thank you
Hi Rusty, Thank you for your question. Home Care is a little confusing at the moment because as you have mentioned, they are phasing out the CHSP and moving to another Home Care support just called the Home Care Package or HCP. The Home Care Package is available at 4 different levels with level 1 being for low-levels of care and level 4 being for high-level care. A CHSP equates to a low-level HCP so either a HCP level 1 or a HCP level, but they two programs (CHSP and HCP) do work in very different ways, in particular, they have very different financial systems. You can read more about CHSP here:What is the Commonwealth Home Support Program | agedcare101. You can read more about HCP here: Omni-Care Home Care Packages, Preston, VIC | agedcare101. Also, you don’t get to chose which care package you receive. An assessment is done by the government and the assessor will decide what level of care is appropriate. Of course, you can use whatever provider you wish if you pay privately but that is not always an affordable option. If your aunt’s health situation changes then it is reasonable to ask for another assessment (even if you received one within the last year) and the assessor may then grant a HCP. We hope this helps, the aged