Aged care for elderly parents when both need support starts with understanding what each person needs, arranging separate assessments and asking providers how their care could work together. Below, you’ll find how the assessments work, how different types of care fit together and what to ask if your parents want to stay together.
Key Takeaways
- Separate assessments: Each parent needs their own aged care assessment, even when they live together.
- Different arrangements: One parent can receive Support at Home while the other uses entry-level services or moves into residential care.
- Separate budgets: Each parent receiving Support at Home has their own budget, service agreement and monthly statement.
- Couple finances: Residential means assessments generally count half the couple’s combined income and assets for each person.
- Staying together: Homes differ on shared or nearby rooms, staggered move-in dates and meeting both parents’ care needs.
You might start by looking for help for Dad, only to realise how much Mum has already taken on. She’s doing the shopping, keeping track of appointments and helping him get ready each morning. Now she could use some help too.
Or both parents may need care, just not the same kind. One may need the round-the-clock support of residential aged care, while the other can still manage at home with a little help.
If you’re part of the sandwich generation, you may be arranging all of this between work calls and school pick-ups. If you’re also providing hands-on care yourself, you may be able to get Centrelink sandwich generation support as a family carer. Start with what each parent wants help with, then look at how the arrangements could work together.
Does Each Parent Need Their Own Aged Care Assessment?
Each parent who needs government-subsidised aged care must get their own assessment and approval through the Single Assessment System, even if they live together. If you haven’t been through the process before, how to start arranging aged care support covers the first steps.
Before you call My Aged Care on 1800 200 422, jot down for each parent:
- What they want help with
- What they can manage themselves
- What their partner currently does for them
- What family members or services already provide
- What they’d like to keep doing
You might find the My Aged Care Assessment Preparation Checklist handy here. It’s free to download, and you can fill in a copy for each parent.
Be specific. “Mum helps Dad” tells an assessor much less than “Mum helps Dad shower, prepares his meals and drives him to every appointment.” Include the help that goes the other way too, such as Dad still managing the bills.
When you call, ask whether your parents’ appointments can be coordinated. If one parent already receives aged care, ask whether they need a support plan review or reassessment rather than assuming they have to start again.
Support for the Parent Providing Care
The parent doing the caring needs to be part of the conversation too. Ask which tasks they’d like to keep doing and which they’d be relieved to hand over. They might enjoy cooking for both of them but want help with the cleaning. If they need aged care themselves, that depends on their own age and care needs, since caring for a partner doesn’t automatically qualify them for aged care services.
A parent caring for their partner may also be able to receive a carer payment. Carer Gateway, on 1800 422 737, offers free counselling, coaching and other support, and its tailored support packages may help your family access planned respite.
Can Both Parents Receive Different Types of Aged Care?
Yes, each parent can receive a different type of aged care, based on their own assessment. However, it’s often more practical to use the same provider where possible.
Both Living at Home
Your father might need personal care and nursing through Support at Home, while your mother only needs some cleaning or transport through the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP).
If one provider offers both, ask how they’d coordinate visits and contacts. Using one provider may be convenient, but it shouldn’t mean settling for an arrangement that only works well for one of them.
Both Receiving Support at Home
Even if they use the same provider, each parent has their own budget, service agreement and monthly statement, and the two budgets aren’t treated as one household budget. Find out what couples can and can’t share under Support at Home.
Before either parent signs a service agreement, ask how services that support both of them will be recorded and charged.
One in Care, One at Home
When one parent moves into residential care, life changes for the parent staying at home too. If Mum has always organised meals and appointments, Dad may need help with those once she moves. If Dad has handled the household paperwork, Mum may want someone to sit down and go through it with her.
If the parent at home already receives Support at Home, their partner’s move into residential care can change what they need from their Support at Home services. Talk to their provider about what has changed and ask whether they need a support plan review. If they haven’t been assessed, contact My Aged Care.
How Are Your Parents’ Finances Assessed for Aged Care?
Your parents’ care needs are assessed separately, but their finances are assessed as a couple. For residential aged care, half of the couple’s combined income and assets is generally included in each person’s means assessment, no matter whose name the assets are held in. If one parent keeps living in the family home, the home isn’t counted as an asset in the other parent’s assessment.
Support at Home contributions are worked out differently. If one or both parents move permanently into residential care, tell Centrelink and ask whether the illness-separated couple provisions apply to their pensions.
For more information, read about aged care fees for couples, how the former home is means tested and Support at Home contributions. Always get independent financial advice before deciding whether to sell, rent out or keep the home.
Can Your Parents Stay Together in Residential Aged Care?
Whether your parents can stay together depends on the aged care home and both their care needs. Sharing a room, having adjoining rooms and living in the same residential facility are different arrangements, and a provider that welcomes couples may offer only one of them.
In every enquiry, describe both parents’ care needs together and explain what staying together means to them. Then ask about:
- Shared, adjoining or nearby rooms
- Arrangements if one parent moves in first
- Priority for the second parent
- Arrangements if one parent later needs care in another part of the home
- Costs for each parent
The Aged Care Provider Comparison Checklist can help here too, so you can compare each home’s answers side by side after an enquiry or tour.
Keep Both Parents’ Paperwork in One Place
Use one paper or digital folder with a clearly labelled section for each parent, so you can pick up where you left off, whether you’re calling a provider between meetings or reading a letter after the school run.
Keep each parent’s assessment outcomes, support plans, service agreements and monthly statements in their own section, with the details someone may need at short notice, such as medications, doctors and emergency contacts, at the front.
If siblings are helping, agree on one place to record calls, appointments and follow-up tasks, so everyone knows who’s handling what. This helps even more if one of you is caring from another city or state.
With each parent’s agreement, choose a main family contact for providers. Becoming a registered supporter allows My Aged Care to speak with you about a parent’s care, but being the family contact doesn’t automatically give you decision-making authority. Any legal appointment, such as an enduring power of attorney, needs to cover the decision being made and be active when it’s used.
Need Help Finding Care That Works for Both Parents?
Comparing providers for one parent takes time. When both parents need support, you’re weighing every option against two sets of care needs, sometimes across home care and residential care. Aged Care Decisions can do that comparison for you, at no cost.
- We compare Support at Home and residential aged care providers in your parents’ area.
- We consider both parents’ care needs together, so you don’t end up with a home that suits only one of them.
- We ask homes about shared, adjoining or nearby rooms, and what could happen if only one place is available at first.
- We tell you which providers currently have availability, so you’re not relying on a waiting list that was full months ago.
- We’re independent, and you don’t pay us for the service.
- There’s no obligation to choose any provider we suggest.
Reach out today and grab your free Provider Options Report.
