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Navigating Aged Care services can be a little daunting with so many options.

We’ve put together this handy FAQ to help you figure out what questions to ask a potential provider.

Our client services team are available to answer all your questions – they’re just at the end of the phone line and happy to help.
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General Questions

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  • How is your home care service unique, or better than other providers?

    Community Based Support staff are committed, passionate, qualified and experienced. We are a not-for-profit and proudly Tasmanian – our local office is in Moonah – when you call us you know you are speaking with a local who knows your area and the services available.

  • How long has your organisation been providing home care services?

    For over 30 years we have been supporting older Tasmanians to live the life they choose.

  • What type of entity is your organisation?

    We are registered as Community Based Support Ltd and have a board of directors.

Care Service Questions

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  • How would your organisation implement the Customer Directed Care model to maximise independence and degree of choice?

    An experienced Care Coordinator will work with you to design your package to meet your individual goals and preferences and then they will assist you throughout your care journey. Your Care Coordinator will have regular contact with you and your Support Workers about any changing needs. When developing a care plan, we will focus on your abilities and goals to maintain your independence.

  • How would you guarantee as far as practicable consistency of support workers?

    When creating a roster for our clients we work with you to match support workers for best fit. We aim to build a robust team of support workers, so that if a staff member was unable to attend their shift, we could send another member from the team. Any changes to the roster, or staffing are always communicated. We understand that “fit” is a very personal choice, and we will work with you to ensure the best possible fit.

  • Do you have your own care staff or do you use sub-contractors?

    We have more than 200 Community Based Support staff assist over 5,000 people to maintain their independence at home. Our staff deliver personal care, domestic assistance, social support, well-being checks and in-home respite. We use sub-contractors for brokerage, garden maintenance and refer to allied health professionals as required. Any contractor we use has undergone appropriate safety checks to ensure compliance.

  • How do you ensure COVID-19 safe home care service delivery?

    100% of our available staff are up-to-date with their COVID-19 vaccine. Staff are provided with PPE supplies including gloves, masks and hand sanitiser along with training on Covid safe practices. Masks are compulsory while working in any indoor setting.
    In the case of a client being a close contact, or testing positive, CBS continues to provide support if required. All staff attending the client home will be provided with full PPE and training on how to put on and remove PPE correctly.

  • What are your hours for providing services? Can you provide overnight support?

    We are flexible with support hours, however, the majority of our services are delivered between the hours of 7am – 6pm. We do provide overnight support and this can be discussed with the care coordinator.

  • From what physical location would your organisation deliver home care services?

    Our head office is at 24 Sunderland St, Moonah.

Cost Questions

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  • What will be the cost for each service?

    Please refer to current pricing schedule.
    Pricing schedule

  • What would be the care management cost for a home care package?

    Please refer to current pricing schedule as well as sample budget.

  • What services are included as part of the care management costs?

    Care Management includes all the work we do with you, and behind the scenes, to ensure your Home Care Package meets your needs. For example speaking to you on the phone, creating your home care plan, making changes to your roster, coordinating all the services that fall within the Home Care Package.

  • Do you charge for package management? If so, what is included and how much does it cost?

    Package management fee includes activities that are directly related to managing your Home Care Package. This includes things like preparing and sending monthly statements, managing the package funds, compliance and quality assurance activities for home care like police/vulnerable people checks. Please refer to pricing schedule for costs.

  • Would you charge an exit amount for cancelling a Home Care Agreement?

    We do not charge an Exit fee.

  • What other costs should I be aware of?

    Service charges that we will deduct for the services provided by us, our suppliers or third parties selected by you.

  • What would a package budget look like?

    We will prepare a sample budget for you based on your needs and work with you to further refine that.

  • How would I pay you these costs?

    There are a number of payment methods available including:

    • Cash or EFTPOS at our office
    • Cheque or money order
    • BPAY
    • Payments can be made at Service Tasmania shops
    • Periodic payment by giving your bank or credit union, or direct debit

  • Do you charge travel fees to attend for service delivery, and if so, what are those fees?

    Travel is charged when a client is travelling in a support worker vehicle. Costs are in the pricing schedule.

  • How much would I have to personally contribute?

    Centrelink will determine if there is an income tested fee based on your income. If you are eligible to pay an income-tested care fee, the government subsidy is reduced by this amount. You may allocate expenditure from your budget towards the services you receive. If you do not have enough money in the package funds to pay for the services, you would then need to make top-up contributions to make up the shortfall.

  • Would your organisation provide hard-copy itemised monthly statements?

    Yes. These are provided as per Government guidelines for Home Care package statements.

Quality questions

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  • How does your organisation ensure the use of qualified, experienced, and caring staff?

    We recruit for people who demonstrate a genuine interest in working in aged care. Support workers have a minimum cert III and are supported through ongoing training and development. We also have staff who have been with us many years with extensive experience and we support them to work towards achieving their Cert III. We ask for feedback on the quality, skills and knowledge of our support workers regularly via our Fast Feedback survey, our annual client satisfaction survey and during review assessments. These regular touch points ensure we can repond to feedback in a timely manner and maintain our focus on continuous improvement.

  • What screening and/or checks does your organisation undertake before engaging care workers?

    All Support Workers must hold:

    • A current First Aid certificate
    • Working with Vulnerable People card
    • National Police Check (renewed every 3 years)
    • Full driving licence
    • For clients who require medication assistance we have credentialed support workers.

  • How do you check for quality of delivery by your staff?

    We do this a number of different ways:

    • Feedback survey reviewing intake processes conducted by phone with new clients
    • Satisfaction Surveys conducted annually by mail – key trends are identified and actioned
    • Progress notes about care activities recorded in database by support workers at every shift, monitored by Care Coordinator
    • Care Coordinators visit clients to oversee service delivery
    • Care Coordinators are available via phone and encourage feedback
    • Comprehensive complaints process
    • Compliments and complaints are collected, analysed and reported to the CBS Board
    • Quality Committee meets regularly to review internal audit results, policy development and continuous improvement initiatives
    • External quality reviews completed by the Aged Care Quality & Safety Commission
    • Incident data is analysed for trends and opportunities for service improvement

  • What if I have a complaint about the quality of services?

    CBS welcomes all feedback including complaints as an opportunity to improve the services we provide, and we take all complaints very seriously. You can submit a complaint a number of ways, whichever is the most convenient for you.

    We will provide you with a Complaints Brochure that outlines our process, and lists other contact numbers that you may require, such as Advocacy and the Aged Care Complaints Commission.

  • How do you obtain and use feedback from your clients?

    We conduct surveys so we can learn more to support clients with services, it helps us to see where we get things right and where we could do better.  Clients are provided with information about our feedback and complaints process.

  • Have you had any recent sanctions or notices of non-compliance?

    No sanctions are in place or notices of non-compliance.  This can be confirmed by using Non-Compliance Checker Tool on the My Aged Care Website.

  • What process do you have in place if I wanted to request a change of care worker?

    If a client wishes to change a worker we need a valid reason. We don’t remove workers just because a client doesn’t like them, too young, too old, cultural background etc. A worker exclusion process is then followed for review, the client will be made aware that if they do remove the worker that the delivery of their service may be impacted whilst we try to source an alternate worker. A request of this nature would be raised with the care coordinator.

More about Home Care Packages