You have left three messages. You have sent an email and watched it go unanswered. Someone did finally pick up last Tuesday, took the details down again, and promised that the care manager would call you back. Nobody has. Meanwhile the showers are still being missed, and you are the one filling the gap.
You are not imagining it, and you are not being difficult.
Here is the honest answer up front, including the part you might not want to hear. There is no button that forces a provider to pick up the phone. What changes things is making the concern impossible to file away: in writing, dated, addressed to someone above your usual contact, with a specific consequence attached. And if that does not work, bringing in someone from outside the provider, which you are entitled to do at any point and far earlier than most people realise.
The good news is that you have more standing here than it feels like you do. Let's walk through it plainly.
What if my provider will not respond?
A provider who argues with you is frustrating. A provider who says nothing at all is a different problem, because there is nothing to push against. These four things are what tends to break the silence.
- Put it in writing, and send it higher. Ask for the care manager's supervisor, the client services manager or the complaints officer. Email, so there is a timestamp. A phone call that nobody logs did not happen as far as the provider's records are concerned.
- Name the specific visits, not the pattern. "The service has been unreliable" is easy to absorb. "The Tuesday and Thursday personal care visits did not happen on the 8th, 10th, 15th and 17th, and nobody called to say so" is not. Dates and services are what a provider has to answer.
- Give a deadline and say what happens next. Two business days is reasonable. Then say what you will do if you have not heard back, whether that is contacting an advocate or making a formal complaint. A request with a consequence attached is much harder to leave sitting in an inbox.
- Keep a running note. Date, who you spoke to, what they said, what they promised. It feels fussy until the day it turns "I've been chasing this for weeks" into "On the 3rd your intake officer told me the care manager would call within 48 hours." That is a far stronger position to follow up from.
And be clear in your own mind about what you are raising, because it is not a favour. The services in your plan are services your provider has already agreed to deliver. A visit that does not happen is a failure on their side, not you being demanding.
Get a free advocate on your side
This is the step most families never hear about, but it could make all the difference in helping you get heard.
The Older Persons Advocacy Network runs a free, independent and confidential advocacy line on 1800 700 600, open Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm and Saturday 10am to 4pm.
- They deal with this every day. An unresponsive provider is not an unusual call for them. They know what the rules require and what a provider can reasonably be asked to do.
- They can speak to the provider for you. That matters more than it sounds. A provider who has been letting a daughter's voicemails pile up often responds rather differently to an advocate who does this professionally.
- It costs nothing, and they are not connected to your provider. They are not employed by them, funded by them or reporting to them.
- You do not have to have tried everything first. There is no requirement to exhaust the provider's own complaints process before you call. If you are stuck, you are allowed to be stuck out loud.
If you would rather not make the call yourself, an advocate can also help you work out what to say before you do.
You can change providers
If none of that lands, you are not stuck with them. Nothing obliges you to stay with a provider you have lost confidence in, and the rules are more generous than most people expect.
- You can change for any reason. Not liking how they communicate is reason enough. You do not owe anyone an explanation.
- Line up the new provider first. Find them and agree a start date before you set an end date with your current one, so there is no gap in care. Ideally the two dates are the same day.
- Reactivate your referral code. Do it in your My Aged Care online account, or call 1800 200 422. Your new provider needs that code before services can start. If you cannot find it, My Aged Care will read it out to you.
- Your funding moves with you, including unspent funds for ongoing services. If you came across from a Home Care Package, the government-held portion of any unspent funds is available to the new provider immediately.
- You cannot be charged an exit fee. Providers are not permitted to charge an exit amount when you leave, and anything you have paid in advance has to be refunded. Check your agreement for notice periods, but an exit charge is not something you have to accept.
One thing to be clear on before you start looking. Under Support at Home you receive all of your services from a single provider, so anyone you are considering needs to be able to deliver everything you have been approved for. Splitting services between two providers is the NDIS model, not this one.
You don't have to work this out alone
It is a lot. You are trying to get care delivered for someone you love, learning an unfamiliar system as you go, being passed between people who do not call back, and holding it together on top of everything else you have on. Feeling worn down by it is not a failure of patience. It is a reasonable response to being ignored.
Having a chat with our team is free to you. It is one-on-one, a real conversation rather than a script, and there is no pressure to decide anything on the spot. If you only want to talk through whether what has happened is worth escalating, that is a perfectly good reason to call. If you do decide to move, we can match you with vetted providers that fit your situation and your area, based on what you actually need, and never a ranking of who is "best".
What matters at the end of all this is the person you are doing it for, properly supported at home, and you back to being their family instead of their case manager.
Whenever you are ready, today, next week or three months from now, we are here.
