The AT-HM Scheme: How Grab Rails, Ramps And Equipment Are Funded Under Support At Home

AT-HM is a separate pool of Support at Home funding for equipment and physical changes to the home. The Department's own description is that it gives participants access to assistive technology and home modifications without needing to save up funds from their quarterly budgets for ongoing services.

Two categories sit inside it.

Assistive technology means items, equipment or products that help someone do things more easily, or do things they can no longer do on their own. Walking sticks, walking frames and wheelchairs. Bedpans and commodes. Shower chairs and bath boards.

Home modifications means physical changes to the home that make it safer and easier to move around. Grab rails in the shower or bathroom. Internal and external handrails. Ramps and stair lifts. Bathroom redesign, and widening doorways and passages for a wheelchair.

An assessor can approve someone for assistive technology funding, home modifications funding, or both.

Funding is allocated in three tiers, and the tiers can be different for assistive technology and for home modifications.

Funding tier	Assistive technology	Home modifications
Low	Under $500	Under $500
Medium	Up to $2,000	Up to $2,000
High	Up to $15,000, or more if needed	Up to $15,000

The difference in that last row matters. For assistive technology, $15,000 is not a hard ceiling. A participant can access more if it is required to meet their assessed needs, through a request form lodged with evidence such as a quote and a valid prescription. The Department aims to process those requests within 14 calendar days. For home modifications, $15,000 is the limit on high tier funding.

If the tier you were given is not enough, your provider can request a support plan review and give evidence of need to increase it. That is a normal request, not a special favour.

Here is the detail worth reading twice.

AT-HM items are classified as independence services under the Support at Home service list. Independence services attract a participant contribution, worked out from your income and assets assessment. So yes, you contribute towards the cost of the grab rail itself.

But the prescription and the wraparound services are classified as clinical supports. Clinical supports are fully funded by the government. In the Department's words, you cannot ask a participant to contribute to that cost.

In plain terms: if an occupational therapist assesses your mother and prescribes a shower chair, that assessment should cost her nothing. If the training to use the equipment safely is billed, that should cost her nothing. The contribution applies to the item, not to the clinician who prescribed it.

If your statement shows a contribution against a prescription, an assessment or a wraparound support line, that is worth questioning before you pay. Wayly's Invoice Checker will check the rates on an invoice, and there is a template to ask about a charge that looks wrong. For the wider picture of which services carry a contribution, read what the three streams cover.

AT-HM funding does not accumulate and it does not sit there forever.

Funding is generally available for 12 months from the participant signing the service agreement, and it must be shown on the monthly statement. High tier home modifications funding may be extended to 24 months if evidence of progress is given to Services Australia. Participants with specific progressive conditions automatically have 24 months to spend the funds, and can apply for a further 24 month extension, giving 48 months in total.

Your provider is required to indicate when funding expires on the monthly statement. If you cannot find that date on yours, ask for it. An expiry date you did not know about is how a bathroom modification gets quoted, delayed and then unfunded. Wayly's Statement Decoder will check your statement line by line, including the AT-HM lines and expiry dates.

If you came across from the Home Care Packages Program, you can access the AT-HM scheme without a further assessment. That is the good news.

But you must use the Commonwealth portion of your unspent Home Care Package funds first, before AT-HM funding becomes available. Providers claim those funds in a set order: the provider-held portion first, which may apply to people who were on a package before 01/09/2021, then the government-held portion through Services Australia.

If there are not enough unspent funds to cover what is needed, an AT-HM funding tier can then be allocated. So if someone tells you a ramp will have to wait because the funding is not there, the first question is whether the unspent package balance has been applied. The second is whether a support plan review has been requested. You can request a support plan review if your needs have changed.

Not every item needs a prescription. The AT-HM list sorts products into three access categories.

Low risk. Simple, low cost daily living products that need no prescription and no customisation. Your provider can help you get these directly.

Under advice. Generally low risk, but better chosen with professional advice so the item is selected, installed and used properly.

Prescribed. More complex or costly products, often adapted to the individual. A suitably qualified health professional, such as an occupational therapist or physiotherapist, must prescribe these.

All home modifications must be prescribed by a suitably qualified health professional.

The AT-HM list excludes products and equipment that are:

• more appropriately funded by other government services
• a usual household or discretionary expense
• for use in a workplace
• for mass transit, such as public transport
• for children

That second one is where most disappointment comes from. A new recliner, a nicer bed or a bathroom renovation that goes beyond accessibility is a household expense, not an aged care modification. The test is whether the change is there to address an assessed need.

AT-HM has its own queue. Funding is allocated through the Assistive Technology Priority System and the Home Modifications Priority System. These are separate from the Support at Home Priority System, which means a participant may be allocated AT-HM funding before their ongoing services funding comes through. If you are waiting for a package and the bathroom is unsafe now, this is worth raising with your assessor.

Repairs come out of the same pot. The cost of repairs and maintenance on equipment bought through the scheme should be funded from the AT-HM allocation. If the funds have expired and the equipment needs fixing, your provider can refer you for a support plan review to access more.

If you live in a remote area classified 6 or 7 under the Modified Monash Model, a remote supplement applies to help with the higher cost of AT-HM services and items.

Take these to your next conversation, or to your care plan review.

1. Have we been approved for an AT-HM funding tier, and is it for assistive technology, home modifications, or both?
2. What tier, and what does the Notice of Decision say?
3. When does that funding expire, and where does that date appear on our statement?
4. Do we have unspent Home Care Package funds that have to be used first?
5. Is the item we need on the AT-HM list, and does it need a prescription?
6. Is the prescription or assessment being billed to us? It should not be.
7. If the tier is not enough, will you request a support plan review?

There is a fuller set of questions to take to your care plan review, and you can see every classification budget to understand how AT-HM sits alongside your ongoing services funding.

Aged care, made clear.