Under the Home Care Package requirements recipients have an allocated level of funding for the provision of your home care services.
When your account balance is approaching or has reached a negative balance you will be asked to make a personal contribution.
You may also like to make a personal contribution when you’d like to supplement your care and receive services you need which are over the level of funding provided to you.
We understand that services are critical to many of our customers. Our online platform has been designed for those who are self-managing to regularly log in and see what the current balance of your funding.
Our HomeMade platform also allows you to make personal contributions so that you can top up your balance and continue you to get the services you need.
What is a Personal Contribution?
A personal contribution is where you provide additional funds towards your home services beyond the funding that has been provided to you by the Government under your Home Care Package allocation.
This amount is funded by you, and any monthly amount can be nominated.
A personal contribution could also occur when you’re getting close to your allocated budget and you want to “top-up” your account to make sure you have enough funds for the services you need to receive.
Setting up a Personal Contribution
Setting up a personal contribution is easy on the HomeMade platform.
Step 1: Log in to your Home Made Account
Step 2: From the home screen, select the “Account” tab in your left-hand menu
Step 3: Select “payment information” and add a “personal contribution“
Step 4: You will set up an email from HomeMade / GoCardless to set up a credit card payment. Compete the form within the email and your personal contribution will be ready to go.
Do I have to Pay my Contribution in Advance?
Yes, your personal contribution will sit as a credit on your HomeMade account and will added to your total available balance.
Don’t worry, we will only draw on these personal contribution funds once your home care funding has been fully utilised. Therefore if you don’t end up going into arrears you will not need to make a personal contribution.
How Often will HomeMade withdraw money?
We will only ever top up your account to the personal contribution limit you have set.
We do this once a month towards the start of the month. For example, if you set a $500 limit and overspend by $500 that month, we will top another $500 the next month. Whereas if you set a $500 limit and overspend by only $200 that month, we will only top another $300 the next month.
You can refer to the “My Bills” section of your HomeMade platform to vie your personal contribution direct debits.
What if I want to stop making a personal contribution?
No worries! You can reduce or remove your personal contribution at any time by logging into the HomeMade platform and changing the limit to $0 or lowering your limit to another amount.
It is important to know you will be able to track how much of your personal contribution has been used in the platform and your monthly statement. Unspent personal contributions can be returned at any time, and your spending can be capped at your approved package level.
The ability to add personal contributions is available for our customers to ensure that they have the flexibility and option to “top up” their funds if they wish to continue receiving certain level of services.