Picture a two-person home maintenance business in Melbourne's outer suburbs. Half its invoices are paid on the spot; the other half — mostly commercial work — take thirty to sixty days and a string of follow-up emails. The owner is interested in aged care clients, but one question stops him cold: who actually pays me, and how long do I wait? He can't afford another category of slow payers.
This example is illustrative, created to show how the local partner model works in practice.
It's the right question to ask. Under Support at Home — the program that replaced Home Care Packages on 1 November 2025 — the money doesn't move the way a normal trade invoice does. Here's the flow, and where your business sits in it.
How the funding actually flows
Support at Home funding is government money, allocated to each participant across eight funding classifications and released in quarterly budgets. Only a registered provider — registered with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission in the relevant categories — can claim that funding, and the registered provider carries the compliance and audit obligations that come with it.
So the chain is: government → registered provider → your business. As a subcontracting partner, you deliver the service; the registered provider does the claiming and government-facing work; you get paid through the partner arrangement.
Invoicing through the partner arrangement
In Partner with Care's local partner model, you don't chase individual households for payment, and you don't wrestle with government claiming portals. You deliver the work, invoice through the partnership, and PWC — as the registered backbone — handles the claiming and compliance behind it.
Importantly, this isn't labour hire. You keep your brand, your client relationships and your pricing power. Because self-managing clients choose their own workers and suppliers, they're choosing your business, by name — the partnership simply provides the registered structure that lets their funding pay you.
Why payment reliability is the whole game for small business
Any owner knows the maths: work delivered but not paid is a loan you're making involuntarily. For sole traders and small crews, one slow-paying segment can dictate whether you take on staff, buy equipment or turn down other work. That's why "reliable payment — nothing to chase" is one of the commitments at the centre of PWC's partner model. The claiming risk, the paperwork risk and the audit risk sit with the registered provider, not with you.
What Partner with Care handles for you: claiming against client budgets, compliance with the Aged Care Act and strengthened Quality Standards, and all government-facing administration. Your job stays what it's always been — showing up and doing excellent work for people who chose you.
What you need in place
You'll still run your business the way you always have: your ABN, your insurance, your invoicing rhythm. The partnership adds a short set of documents and checks up front — and once they're complete, new partners are typically live in around two weeks. Established providers can activate clients in hours.
On rates: government price arrangements apply under Support at Home, so rather than quoting figures here, check the current Department of Health, Disability and Ageing guidance and talk to us about how it applies to your services. The step-by-step is on our become a partner page, and you can see what we carry on your behalf at why us.