Services
Guidance and support to help your family navigate the aged care maze.
How we can help
Family Aged Care Advocates provides guidance and support to help you make informed decisions to get the best care outcomes for your ageing parents or loved ones.
'Stay at home' strategy
Not all roads on the aged care journey have to lead to a nursing home. We help families create a 'stay at home' strategy so loved ones can age with dignity in their own home.
We also review current home care packages to ensure your loved one is getting the care and funding they are entitled to.
Whilst we often talk about “home care”, the services that make up this are many and varied; there is Home Care Packages (HCP), Commonwealth Home Support Packages (CHSP), Department of Veterans Affairs – domestic and nursing (DVA), private services, as well as a myriad of community and health crossover services. All these services are funded differently and have different eligibility criteria and different levels of service.
How we help:
We will visit your loved one's home and develop a Dignity Plan that identifies care needs priorities and next steps.
We research in-home care providers and recommend three providers we believe best suit your loved one's care needs (we are independent and do not have affiliations with any providers).
We can help with the completion of Centrelink forms and ongoing communication with Centrelink.
We can help with the sign-up and on- boarding process, in both traditional and self managed packages.
We will provide a support review in the first and third month to ensure that everything is going the way you want.
We help identify how to get the best value from your package either through a traditional model or self managed.
My Aged Care advice and support
When it comes to accessing government funded aged care services, you must first contact My Aged Care to be assessed.
We will provide guidance and support to ensure your loved one is accurately represented and gets an accurate assessment and care.
The call to My Aged Care is a critical one for determining what support your loved one might be able to get and when.
How we help:
We will provide you with guidance to get the best outcomes from your call to My Aged Care Care to ensure you are heard and that your parents or loved ones get the right assessment for their needs.
We will ensure that your loved ones needs are accurately represented at the in-home assessment.
We will capture the detail of the in-home assessment, so you can reflect on it afterwards.
We will provide an action plan, based on the assessment, with clear steps as to what to do next.
Residential care transition support
We provide guidance for families that are faced with placing their loved one into an aged care facility.
With our aged care placement service, we support you and your loved one as they transition out of their home and into residential care. We ensure your loved one is getting the care they need and ensure the facility has met their accreditation requirements. Understand the financial impacts of decisions with aged care financial advice.
How we help:
We meet with you and your loved one to develop a Dignity Plan to suit their situation.
We will produce an affordability options report which includes: cash flow projections (typically over 5 years) to meet your ongoing cost of care and any other living expenses, impact on your net wealth position and how to manage any emergent risks.
We can help you visit the chosen facility and assist with the admission process.
We will be there on day one of the move into the residential aged care facility and then again at weeks two and four where we conduct a nursing assessment to ensure your loved one is getting the care they need.
Centrelink / DVA Authority Service
We take care of the Centrelink / DVA paperwork and are your loved one's "correspondence nominee" for a period of 6 months.
**IMPORTANT**
We do NOT receive Centrelink / DVA payments
You can either renew our Centrelink / DVA service after 6 months OR do it yourself from that point.
How we help:
Receive copies of all correspondence from Centrelink / DVA (you get a copy as well)
Ask questions to Centrelink / DVA on your behalf
Advise Centrelink / DVA about any changes to your loved one's circumstances
Complete forms and statements
Ensure you're always updated and informed on everything we do on behalf of your loved one
Maximise any entitlements your loved one is entitled to and make claims on their behalf where necessary.
Consultation
We also provide aged care consulting services for families that require guidance on aspects such as decisions around the delivery of services and retirement living options.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do Family Aged Care Services cost?
There is an initial consultation fee of $165 to determine your family's unique requirements.
Following the initial consultation, a detailed Terms Of Engagement will be provided with a personalised quote.
I don't live near my parents (or loved one), how can Family Aged Care Advocates help?
We work with a number of ex pats and family members that do not live near their parents. We can work with you via Zoom and provide the services for your loved one.
See how we helped Leigh, an ex pat living in Hong Kong.