Living in the community with assisted living SRS home care package

Living in the community with assisted living SRS home care package

Living in the community with assisted living SRS home care package by Christine Hopper

You can use a help to stay at home as an assisted living SRS home care package

You can use a help to stay at home as an assisted living SRS home care package.

The benefit of living in community with assisted living SRS home care package is that you have the domestic services provided by the staff team. Your assisted living facility or SRS private guest house provides meals and regular cleaning of your apartment as part of the standard services.

Your SRS private guest house could include personal support and assistance as part of the standard services available to every resident. Additional personal support such as medication supervision or help with showering, might be available for an extra fee or as part of the standard service fee. You pay the required extra fee and the staff team ensure that you receive that specified extra level of personal support.

By living in a SRS private guest house you no longer need to have a personal carer visit you. You have all the help you need provided by the SRS private guest house staff team. Thus, your help to stay at home package might not be needed for your personal care within your home.

More personal support needs than assisted living SRS private guest house home care package provides

You could have more personal support needs than your assisted living SRS private guest house care package covers. You might still have personal support needs that involve going out from your home in the SRS private guest house.
For example, you might require a carer to accompany you to attend your specialist medical appointments or to get your hearing aids checked. Your extended family might be available but not every senior has close family ready to go to yet another medical appointment.

Some assisted living facilities might only provide general oversight and personal support but no practical one on one assistance. Thus these homes would require you to arrange whatever personal assistance services you need. You could then purchase your own personal assistance services with an external carer service. The assisted living facility is then your home so you are free to spend your help to stay at home package on the external carer service.

Could I use my help to stay at home package to pay for my SRS private guest house home care package?

You would expect to be able to use your help to stay at home funding credits to purchase personal assistance and domestic servicers from your facility manager. That is, you expect the SRS private guest house to accept your home care package. But beware of the many conditions on using your help to stay at home package to finance assisted living SRS home care package.

Conditions apply to using your Commonwealth regulated help to stay at home package to finance assisted living SRS home care package.

Firstly, your SRS private guest house operator must be a registered service provider for Commonwealth home care packages.

The operator needs to demonstrate experience in providing aged care as part of an extensive application process. Once registered as an aged care provider, the SRS private guest house operator then needs to comply with the Commonwealth aged care rules and submit to facility auditing and the formal aged care complaints systems.

Not every small SRS private guest house operator wants to be involved in the mountains of paperwork and government compliance challenges just to allow its residents to have part of their SRS private guest house fees paid via the Commonwealth.

Secondly, your help to stay at home package must include personal assistance with the activities of daily living and/or help with meal preparation and domestic cleaning.

In a perfect world, your SRS service fee includes daily help with showering, medication supervision and all meals and cleaning. Your SRS operator has signed up with the Commonwealth to be a ‘home care provider’.
In this perfect environment you could assign your home care package to your SRS operator as part payment of your regular SRS service fees. The SRS operator would claim from your help to stay at home care package as a registered aged care provider.
You would then pay a reduced service fee from your own bank account. In addition you would meet all of the costs for any ‘care’ that you require from external care providers.

Thirdly, the aged care recipient contributes a means tested amount towards the costs of her home care package.

Remember that the aged care recipient would be required to pay a flat dollar fee plus an income tested component towards the costs of a help to stay at home aged care package. The total fee payable under your ‘help to stay at home’ aged care package might be more than the corresponding discount on your SRS private guest house charges.
That is, you might not get any net financial benefit from paying a Centrelink means tested fee for the aged care that your receive from your SRS.
Both you as the resident care recipient, and the SRS operator as care provider, might both gets lots of opportunities to engage with Centrelink and the Commonwealth’s aged care quality teams.

But self-funded seniors choose to use an SRS or private guest house to avoid Centrelink means testing for formal aged care. These SRS residents could be very unhappy at any suggestion that they claim help to stay at home aged care packages.

Specialist advice before permanent entry to SRS Supported Residential Service private guest house

Specialist aged care fee advice before entering a SRS Supported Residential Service private guest house could avoid a cash flow crisis later. No one wants to be required to move on because of money troubles.

Help is available. Christine at Financial Care Services understands the Age Pensions and DVA Pensions.
Christine could help you understand the costs of living in your preferred SRS.

The costs of alternative residential aged care could be illustrated including the Centrelink assessment of means tested care fees.
A consultation with Financial Care Services helps you understand your potential costs of supported living together with the DVA and Centrelink implications of rearranging your assets, leasing or selling the former home.

Call Christine on 03 9808 0338  to make an appointment for a consultation. Please email your enquiry to info@financialcareservices.com.au to receive a Financial Care Services Client Services Guide and Aged Care Data Checklist.

Financial Care Services your independent advisor

Financial Care Services is an independently owned advisory service focused on seniors in transition.

Financial Care Services charges fixed fees for initial consultations about seniors moving home. Financial Care Services does not base fees on the value of your assets nor do we accept any commissions or payments from other service providers.

Christine at Financial Care Services understands the Age and DVA Pensions and Centrelink assessment of the means tested amount for aged care both home care and residential aged care.

A consultation with Financial Care Services helps you understand your potential living costs together with the DVA and Centrelink implications of rearranging your assets, leasing or selling the former home.

Financial Care Services welcomes clients from Melbourne and beyond.

Call Christine on 03 9808 0338 to make an appointment for a consultation. Please email your enquiry to receive a Financial Care Services Client Services Guide and Aged Care Data Checklist.

Assistance with completing Centrelink Pension and aged care means testing forms is available to clients of Financial Care Services.

Arrange an appointment for further confidential, independent and professional advice about DVA, Centrelink, lifestyle or granny flat issues please contact Christine Hopper 03 9808 0338.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this website is of a general nature only and does not constitute “financial advice”. You should obtain your own personal financial advice before investing any money or moving in to any retirement village, lifestyle community or aged care facility.

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