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Home Care Help Independent guide to Support at Home

The Restorative Care Pathway: a funded push to get your strength back

Last updated 20 August 2026

Pathway amounts on this page are published by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing as approximations and are current at 20 August 2026.

The short version

  • Around $6,000 of funding over up to 16 weeks, aimed at recovering strength and independence — after a hospital stay, a fall, or a noticeable decline.
  • It’s allied-health-led and goal-based: a physiotherapist or occupational therapist builds a program around specific goals, like walking to the shops again or showering without help.
  • If you’re making progress but need longer, a Support Plan Review can extend the funding to around $12,000.
  • It replaced Short-Term Restorative Care in November 2025 and is designed to be quicker to reach than an ongoing package — worth asking about at assessment, especially before hospital discharge.

What it is — and how it differs from an ongoing package

Most Support at Home funding is ongoing: one of eight classifications with a quarterly budget that keeps arriving, quarter after quarter. The Restorative Care Pathway is deliberately different. It’s a short, intensive burst of funding with an end date and a purpose: to get you back to doing things for yourself, rather than to keep services running indefinitely.

In practice that means the mix of services looks different. An ongoing package might be weekly cleaning and personal care; a restorative episode is more likely to be physiotherapy twice a week, an occupational therapist reviewing how you move around the house, some equipment, and short-term help that tapers off as you improve. Because nursing and allied health are clinical care, you pay no contribution on the core of the program — clinical services are free for everyone under Support at Home.

The typical triggers are the ones you’d guess: coming home from hospital after surgery or illness, a fall (or a couple of near-misses), or family noticing that strength and confidence have slipped over a few months. The evidence behind restorative care is that a focused effort at these moments can delay or reduce the need for ongoing services — which is exactly why the government funds it separately.

It’s about goals, not hours

The program starts with goals you set — “walk to the letterbox without the walker”, “get in and out of the bath safely”, “drive again”. Everything funded should trace back to one of them. If you’re offered a generic roster of services with no goals attached, that’s not restorative care being done well. Ask what the goals are and how progress will be measured.

The money: around $6,000, extendable to around $12,000

The pathway provides around $6,000 over up to 16 weeks. That funds a meaningful program: at national median prices, physiotherapy runs around $194 an hour and occupational therapy around $222, so a typical episode buys a substantial number of allied health sessions plus supporting services and equipment.

If the clinical team can show you’re progressing but haven’t finished the job — you’re walking further each week but not yet safely on stairs, say — a Support Plan Review can extend the episode, taking total funding to around $12,000. The extension isn’t automatic; it rests on evidence of progress toward your goals, which is another reason to make sure goals are written down at the start.

Restorative care funding is separate from any ongoing classification budget, and the pathway can also be combined with the AT-HM scheme where equipment or home modifications would help the recovery — rails in the bathroom often do more for confidence than another month of visits.

How to access it

  1. Raise it early

    Before assessment

    If you’re in hospital, ask the discharge planner about restorative care under Support at Home before you leave. At home, register with My Aged Care (1800 200 422) and say clearly that you’ve had a fall, a hospital stay or a decline and want to recover function — the words matter, because they point the assessor at this pathway.

  2. The Single Assessment

    At home

    The same assessment that grants ongoing classifications can grant the Restorative Care Pathway. Be honest about what you’ve stopped doing and what you want back. The Notice of Decision will state the pathway if approved.

  3. Choose a provider who does this well

    1–2 weeks

    Restorative care lives or dies on the allied health team. Ask providers how quickly a physio or OT can start, who sets the goals, and how often the program is reviewed. A provider who can’t start allied health for six weeks defeats the purpose of a 16-week program.

  4. Finish with a plan

    Final weeks

    Before the episode ends, the team should either be tapering you off services entirely, seeking the extension, or — if ongoing help is clearly needed — making sure an assessment for an ongoing classification is underway so support doesn’t fall off a cliff.

Recovering from a setback?

Not every provider runs a strong restorative program. Tell us where you are and what’s happened, and we’ll point you to providers with real allied health capacity who can start soon.

Talk to us Prepare for the assessment

Common questions

Do I have to be on the waitlist to get restorative care?

No — the short-term pathways sit outside the National Priority System queue that ongoing classifications wait in, which is much of their appeal. With ongoing packages often taking months, a restorative episode can be the help that arrives when it’s actually needed. See how the waitlist works.

Can I have restorative care and an ongoing package?

The pathway is separate funding with its own purpose, and your assessment determines what combination you’re approved for. If you already receive ongoing services and then have a fall or hospital stay, ask for a reassessment and mention recovery goals — don’t assume your existing budget is all there is.

What does it cost me?

The clinical heart of the program — nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and care management — is free for everyone. Non-clinical services included in the episode (such as personal care or transport) attract the normal contribution percentages for your situation; from 1 October 2026 personal care becomes free too.

What happens if I don’t improve?

Nothing bad — nobody claws anything back. The team documents where you’ve landed and the sensible next step, usually an assessment (or reassessment) for an ongoing classification so the right level of continuing support is in place. Recovery episodes that end in “we now know what ongoing help you need” are still useful ones.

Is this the same as the old Short-Term Restorative Care?

It replaced it. Short-Term Restorative Care ended when Support at Home began on 1 November 2025; the Restorative Care Pathway is its successor, with funding of around $6,000 over up to 16 weeks and the option to extend to around $12,000 via a Support Plan Review.

Sources

  1. Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, health.gov.au — Support at Home short-term pathways and funding classifications.
  2. Support at Home Program Manual — Restorative Care Pathway and Support Plan Reviews.
  3. Department of Health, Disability and Ageing — National Summary of Support at Home Prices (median allied health prices), 2026.
  4. My Aged Care, myagedcare.gov.au — assessment and access guidance, accessed 20 August 2026.
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