Aged Care Prepare

• Receive an assessment from the Aged Care Assessment Team (ACAT) to determine your eligibility for a home care package, residential care and certain forms of flexible care.

• Receive the approval letter from My Aged Care which will outline the services that you have been approved for.
• If you have been approved for a home care package, the letter of approval will state which level that you have been approved for: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 or level 4.

You can access residential care, respite and other flexible care that you have been approved for once you have received your approval letter.

• For home care packages you will automatically be placed in the national queue where you will wait until a home care package becomes available. This can take several months.

• Once a home care package becomes available, you will receive a letter from My Aged Care stating that you have been assigned a home care package, stating the level of package that you have been assigned.
• Although you may have approval for a level 3 or 4 package, you may initially be assigned a level 1 or 2 package. This is because there are less higher-level packages that are available at the moment.
• Although you may be assigned a lower level package, you will still automatically remain in the queue for the level that you were approved for initially.

• Once you have been assigned a package you will have 56 days to choose a provider and sign a home care agreement with the provider. If you don’t do this within the 56 days you will not be able to accept the assigned package and will be placed back on the national queue where you will wait until another package becomes available.
• If for any reason you are unable to enter into a home care agreement with a service provider within the 56 days, you can request a 28-day extension by phoning My Aged Care.
• For more information regarding the Approval stage for aged care services, call My Aged Care on 1800 200 422 or by visiting www.myagedcare.gov.au.