Support at Home — the Australian Government’s replacement for the Home Care Package program — launched on 1 July 2025. For allied health practice owners, it represents a significant new revenue stream and a genuine diversification opportunity away from NDIS dependence. But entering Support at Home is not as simple as registering and billing. The financial, tax, and structural implications require careful planning.
What Support at Home Means for Allied Health Revenue
Support at Home funds allied health services for older Australians living at home. The program covers physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, podiatry, dietetics, and exercise physiology — the same disciplines that dominate NDIS. For practices already delivering these services, Support at Home is an adjacent market with similar clinical delivery but different funding rules.
The pricing structure differs from NDIS. Support at Home prices allied health services in two categories:
- Direct services: Face-to-face clinical delivery, priced at the allied health hourly rate
- Indirect services: Report writing, case management, care coordination — priced at a lower rate than direct services
Unlike NDIS, Support at Home does not allow provider travel to be billed separately — travel costs are absorbed into the direct service rate. This is a critical difference for mobile practices that have built their NDIS model around travel billing.
GST Treatment — The Critical Difference
This is where most allied health practices get caught out. The GST treatment of Support at Home services is not identical to NDIS.
- NDIS services: GST-free under the NDIS GST-free supply rules
- Support at Home — direct clinical services: Generally GST-free as health services under Division 38-B of the GST Act
- Support at Home — care management and coordination: May be subject to GST depending on how the service is characterised
The practical implication: if you enter Support at Home and begin delivering care coordination or case management services, you may be creating a GST liability that didn’t exist in your NDIS model. Your BAS needs to be reviewed before you start billing.
Business Structure for Support at Home
Should you deliver Support at Home through your existing NDIS practice entity, or set up a separate structure? This is a question Shuriken regularly advises on, and the answer depends on several factors:
- Compliance separation: Support at Home has different compliance requirements to NDIS. Some practices prefer a separate entity to keep compliance obligations clean and auditable.
- Tax efficiency: If Support at Home revenue is delivered through the same trust as NDIS revenue, the combined income may push distributions into higher tax brackets. A separate entity with its own distribution strategy may be more tax-efficient.
- Liability protection: Aged care clients present different liability profiles to NDIS participants. Some practices prefer the additional liability separation of a separate entity.
- Practical simplicity: For smaller practices, the compliance cost of a separate entity may outweigh the benefits. A single entity with clear internal accounting separation is often the right answer.
The Revenue Opportunity — Modelling the Numbers
The Support at Home market is large. There are approximately 1.4 million Australians receiving aged care services at home, with the program budgeted at $8.3 billion per year. Allied health services represent approximately 8–12% of Support at Home spending.
For a practice with 5 clinicians, adding 2 Support at Home sessions per clinician per week represents approximately 10 additional billable hours per week, or 440 hours per year. At an average rate of $180/hour, that’s $79,200 in additional annual revenue — with minimal additional overhead if the practice is already mobile.
The key constraint is referral pathways. Support at Home referrals come from aged care providers, GPs, and My Aged Care assessors — different channels to NDIS. Building these referral relationships takes time and deliberate effort.
For a detailed analysis of whether Support at Home is the right diversification move for your practice, take the free CARE Assessment. The Enterprise Value dimension covers revenue diversification as a key driver of practice value. See also: Allied Health Practice Profit Margins.
