You can spend your aged care package on approved services, equipment and home modifications that relate directly to your health, safety and independence in your own home. The condition attached to all of it is that the spending has to be written into your formal care plan.
Your package is subsidised by the Australian Government, which is why the rules exist at all. The funds are there to meet assessed care needs, not the general costs of living.
The home care packages program became the Support at Home program on 1 November 2025. The funding structure changed, but the principle behind what you can buy did not.
The Rule Behind Every Decision: It Must Be in Your Care Plan
Every purchase has to trace back to your assessed needs and appear in your care plan. That is the test. There is no universal shopping list.
It is why two people on the same home care package level can spend on quite different services. Their care needs and support needs are not the same, so their plans are not either.
Your ongoing services are set out in your care plan, which is reviewed regularly and can change as your needs change. If you want something new funded, the conversation to have is a care plan review, not a purchase request.
This is also why generic lists online can mislead. Something funded for your neighbour may not be funded for you, and the difference is usually documentation rather than fairness.
What Your Aged Care Package Covers
Under Support at Home, these are formally clinical supports, independence services and everyday living.
The category matters, because it decides how much the government pays and how much you contribute.
Personal Care and Independence Support
Personal care services cover help with bathing and showering, dressing, grooming, toileting, and getting in and out of bed. Mobility transfers sit here too.
This is daily hygiene and dignity support, and for most people it is the part of the package used most often. Independence services are built around keeping you doing as much for yourself as you safely can, with help filling the gaps rather than replacing them.
Nursing and Clinical Supports
Registered nursing services include wound care, clinical monitoring, continence support, catheter and stoma care, and medication management oversight.
Clinical supports are fully funded by the government under Support at Home, with no contribution from you. If you have been putting off asking for nursing input on cost grounds, that is worth knowing.
Allied Health Services
Physiotherapy, podiatry, occupational therapy, speech therapy and dietetics are all claimable.
These are the services people underuse most, and they are often the ones that keep someone out of hospital. Occupational therapy is also usually what unlocks home modifications, because an occupational therapist assessment is what documents the clinical need for them.
Everyday Living and Domestic Assistance
Domestic assistance covers house cleaning, laundry and ironing. Light gardening and home maintenance are claimable where they are needed for safe access, though landscaping is not.
Meal preparation is funded, and so is the delivery portion of pre-prepared meals. The raw ingredients are not. This distinction catches out more people than any other: the service is funded, the food itself is not.
Transport, Social Support and Respite
Transport to medical appointments, shopping assistance, and travel to community activities are all covered when they relate to your care needs.
Social activities and companionship support services count too. Isolation affects health, so this is not a luxury add-on.
Respite care, in your home or in one of our homes, gives unpaid family carers a break. It is claimable, and it is one of the most underused entitlements in aged care.
Equipment and Home Modifications
Assistive technology covers walking frames, wheelchairs, shower chairs, personal alarms, bed rails and pressure mattresses. Home modifications cover grab rails, safety ramps, step changes and bathroom alterations.
There is one gate on all of it. Home modifications must be based on clinical recommendations, usually an occupational therapy assessment. Get the assessment first, because buying before it is documented is how people end up out of pocket.
Under Support at Home, assistive technology and home modifications draw on separate dedicated funding, so a wheelchair does not swallow your service budget for the quarter.
Worth asking about too: equipment is often loaned or supplied rather than bought outright, which stretches what your funding achieves.
What You Cannot Spend Your Package On
The exclusions matter as much as the inclusions, and they do disappoint people. The logic behind them is consistent though. Package funds pay for care, not for the ordinary costs of living that everybody meets whether they receive care or not.
General Living Costs
Rent, mortgage payments, council rates and standard utility bills including electricity, gas, phone and internet cannot be paid with home care package funds.
Groceries, Clothing and Entertainment
Supermarket food, clothing and personal toiletries are out, as are movie tickets, holiday travel, club memberships and gym access.
There is a real exception worth knowing. Exercise programs and gym access can be funded where an allied health professional has prescribed them as clinical therapy.
Anything Another Program Already Covers
Costs already met by Medicare or the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme are excluded, and prescription medication is not covered. Over-the-counter medication is excluded unless it is documented in your care plan.
Dental, optical and hearing services run through other government programs, and some costs may sit with your private health insurance instead.
Making Your Package Funds Go Further
Ask what goes on administration: Package management and care management fees come out of your budget, and the proportion varies between providers. This is the single biggest lever on how much care you actually receive.
Compare providers: Hourly rates differ, sometimes considerably, and you are entitled to change provider if the value is not there.
Do not save up indefinitely: Unused funding rolls over only within set quarterly limits, so plan your spending across the year.
Ask for a review: Persistent underspending usually means your care plan is out of date rather than that you need less support.
Our fees and charges page sets out how costs are structured, and your contribution depends on your income and assets assessment.
Have Further Enquiries? Get in Touch with Hall & Prior Today!
If you are unsure whether something is claimable, ask before you buy rather than after.
The answer almost always comes back to your care plan, and a plan that has not been reviewed in a while is the most common reason people are told no.
We can walk you through what your package covers, what sits outside it, and how much of your budget is going to management fees rather than care.
Contact us today, and we will help you get more out of the funding you already have.