How to Change Home Care Providers Under Support at Home

Choosing a home care provider is not a decision you make once and live with forever. Maybe the communication has slipped, the prices no longer stack up, your support workers keep changing, or your needs have moved beyond what your current provider offers well. Under Support at Home, you have the right to change providers, and the process is more straightforward than many people expect.

The short answer: you can change Support at Home providers at any time, no provider is allowed to charge you an exit fee, and your classification and budget belong to you, not your provider. The main things to get right are the timing, the notice to your current provider, and lining up your new services so there is no gap in support.

Can You Change Your Support at Home Provider?

Yes. Choice of provider is built into the program. The Australian Government’s Support at Home pricing arrangements confirm that you can change providers at any time without paying a fee, which removes the exit charges that made some people feel locked in under older arrangements.

You do not need to justify the change to anyone, and changing providers does not affect your approval, your classification or your place in the system. If you are unsure how the program fits together, our guide to the 2026 Support at Home changes covers the basics.

Common Reasons for Changing Home Care Providers

The common reasons we hear are practical ones. Prices that have crept up or compare poorly with other providers (you can check any quote against the government’s quarterly national price summary, and against Kanda’s published Support at Home pricing). Rostering problems, such as constantly changing support workers or unreliable visit times. Poor communication, where phone calls and emails go unanswered. Services that no longer match needs, particularly when clinical care such as nursing enters the picture. Or simply a relationship that never quite worked.

Whatever the reason, it is your call. The relationship should work for you, not the other way around.

What Happens to Your Funding When You Switch?

This is the question that worries people most, and the news is reassuring. Your classification and quarterly budget are attached to you, not to your provider. Under Support at Home, your funding is managed through the government rather than sitting in a provider-held account, so when you change providers your budget generally moves with you, including unspent funds you have carried over within the rollover cap.

Your new provider delivers services against the same approved support plan and budget. What will change is pricing: providers currently set their own prices, so the same budget can buy more hours with one provider than another. Our guide on how to make your Support at Home budget go further explains what to compare before making a decision. It is worth comparing before you move; the difference is often meaningful.

How To Change Providers, Step by Step

• Check your service agreement. Look for the notice period (commonly around two weeks, but agreements vary) and how notice must be given, which is usually in writing.

• Compare new providers before you leave. Ask for full price lists, check them against the quarterly national price summary, and ask the questions that matter to you: staff continuity, response times, clinical capability, and how care management works. My Aged Care’s Find a Provider tool lists providers in your area.

• Contact My Aged Care about your referral code. Call 1800 200 422 or use your Online Account so your referral code can be made available to your chosen new provider. Your new provider can often help coordinate this step.

• Agree a start date with your new provider first. Sign the new service agreement and confirm your care plan and budget before your current services end.

• Give your current provider written notice. Keep it simple: the date your services will end and a request to finalise any outstanding matters, including your statements.

• Review the first month with your new provider. Check your first statement, confirm the services match your support plan, and raise anything that is not right early.

How Do You Avoid a Gap in Your Services?

The golden rule is to overlap the paperwork, not the services. Line up your new provider, service agreement and start date before you give notice, and time the start date to follow directly on from your final day with your current provider. 

If you receive time-critical supports such as community nursing or daily personal care, tell both providers, so handover notes, medication information and care plans move across before day one.

A good incoming provider will do most of this coordination for you. At Kanda, that is exactly how our home care services team approaches a transfer: one conversation to understand what matters to you, then we handle the referral code, the paperwork and the handover, so the only thing that changes on day one is who knocks on the door.