A new version of the Support at Home Program Handbook (v4.0) was released earlier this week and we have undertaken an assessment if any additional changes are required to our software. A summary is below on the outcome of the review and an indication where a change is being made to our software:
Chapter 2.0: New information about the Provider Requirements Search tool.
- No change required to the Nightingale Software
Chapter 3.0: New information about financial reporting.
- No change required to the Nightingale Software
Chapter 6.0: Subsidy indexation for ongoing classifications; additional information on the single provider model; definition of a service delivery branch; new information on interim funding.
- Nightingale will ensure that we are prepared to apply indexation to ongoing classifications in March and September each year.Â
- Nightingale will ensure that we are able to support interim budgets, along with prorated additional budgets when participants are approved for full Support at Home funding
- Nightingale will ensure that care management fees are pooled at the service delivery branch level, and support linking of a participant to a single service delivery branch, ensuring their care management fees are always subtracted from the correct service delivery branch.
No additional change is required to support any of the above items.Â
Chapter 7.0: Additional information for service agreements.
- No change required to the Nightingale Software
Chapter 8.0: Additional information for calculation of care management funding; new information on care plans for interim funding.
- Nightingale will ensure that the same care management rules are applied to interim budgets as full Support at Home budgets.No additional change is required to support any of the above items.Â
- Nightingale is aware of the new calculation of care management funding, where there is a supplement on top of the base rate of 10% of the participant’s ongoing quarterly budget based an additional annual 12 hours of care. We are reviewing what impact that will have in Nightingale.
 After further review of the Handbook, the care management supplement is only applied to certain high needs participants. This is already supported as developed, due to the manual nature of entering care management budgets directly from the values provided by Services Australia in the Aged Care Provider Portal.
Chapter 9.0: New information on management of participant portion HCP unspent funds; additional information on contribution rates for transitioned and grandfathered HCP care recipients; new information and case study on the recovery or refund of participant contributions.
- Nightingale will ensure we can track outstanding provider held HCP care recipient fees, so that they can be utilised to pay Support at Home participant contributions where agreed.
- Nightingale will ensure that we exclude all services and products paid for with HCP unspent funds from participant contribution invoicing
No additional change is required to support any of the above items.Â
Chapter 10.0: New information about reimbursements for services.
- Nightingale will ensure that we provide the ability to track and claim for services paid for by a participant and require provider reimbursement.
Nightingale is considering options to support this requirement. Further information will be provided when details are available.
Chapter 11.0: New information about reimbursements for services delivered by a third-party worker including update to process map for engaging a third-party worker.
- No change required to the Nightingale Software
Chapter 13.0: New information about reimbursements for assistive technology.
- No change required to the Nightingale Software
Chapter 16.0: New information about evidence for claiming.
- Nightingale will ensure that evidence for claiming is able to be logged in Nightingale, for reference if required.
No additional change is required to support this item. Invoices can be entered into Nightingale as proof of services and products delivered or supplied and attended shifts are available for viewing as evidence of services delivered. Service agreements can be entered as custom forms to provide proof of agreement for services and products to be delivered.Â
Chapter 18.0: New information about interaction between Support at Home and CHSP. Updated information for the Disability Support for Older Australians (DSOA) program and the Continence Aids Payment Scheme (CAPS).
- No change required to the Nightingale Software
What is next?
Release 2 – Participant Statements; Contributions; Claims; Care Management rollover Â
Work is continuing for the remaining Support at Home items and a future release will include the following:
- Participant Statements – development work on the monthly participant statement is almost complete. The statement format was based on the sample provided by Services Australia. Minor changes have been made to ensure that the information is readily accessible. The statement outlines the funding available, services delivered, contributions made by the participant and remaining funding available for a calendar month period and will be available to be issued on a monthly basis. Development work is also underway to ensure that final statements can be issued to participants on cessation of services.
The process to generate this claim can be seen in the following screenshot:
- Participant Contributions – Once services have been claimed and reconciled, an invoice will be able to be generated for participant contributions. These will be based on the contribution percentages entered when configuring the participant.Â
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- Support at Home claims – development work for Support at Home claiming via CSV is also almost complete. A CSV file will be available to be generated, in the correct format to be submitted in the Aged Care Provider Portal. Once the claim is validated, a reconciliation report will be provided, which can be uploaded into Nightingale to reconcile the claim against services provided. Once this is complete, the participant contribution amounts will be available for invoicing. We will provide a sample of the CSV in the near future when it is available, but the following screenshot shows how to generate the claim, and the options that are available:
- Some services (such as those provided by a 3rd party) and products (such as those funded in the AT/HM scheme) require an invoice to be entered as evidence of the service or product provided. The following screenshot shows the process to add an invoice, with additional fields added to support all information required for a Support at Home claim:
- Care management rollover – facilitating the rollover of care management funding from quarter to quarter and rolling over the outstanding care management funding at the end of financial year.
All of the above screenshots and sample files are subject to change with further development and are provided for reference only at this stage to share our current progress. This will also be discussed in the Information Session on the 24th September 2025.
