Home help is assistance with domestic activities (cooking, cleaning, shopping etc) in your home, when you cannot perform these activities because of a personal injury.
What help can I get?
ACC provides home help based on the domestic activities that:
- you performed before you were injured, and are now unable to perform
- other family members, or members of your household need assistance with, because of the extra demands that your injury has placed on them.
What do I need to do to get help?
- Talk to ACC about what kind of help we may be able to provide. See Contact ACC Claims for contact information.
- Complete the ACC001 Request for assistance form, listing details of home help that you require.
Note:
- You can also make a verbal application for specific assistance.
- You can authorise other people, eg a family member or your doctor, to make applications for assistance on your behalf.
How am I eligible?
Your eligibility for home help depends on several things, including:
- how much of the domestic activities you carried out the before the injury, and the extent to which you can do those things after the injury
- the number of household family members, and their need for home help
- how much the domestic activities were done by other household family members before your injury
- how much of the domestic activities household family members, or other family members might reasonably be expected to carry out after your injury.
All of these things will be discussed with you by your ACC client services contact.
The length of time home help can be provided to you will depend on your injury and recovery. ACC will discuss your progress with you during your recovery and we may reassess your needs from time to time.
Important:
The help you will get depends on your individual circumstances. Please contact us to confirm if you are eligible, or to identify other ways in which we can help. See Contact ACC Claims for our contact information.
If you are unhappy with the decision, you can ask for it to be reviewed. See What if I have problems with a claim?
How long might ACC take to determine if I am eligible?
ACC regards 21 days as a reasonable timeframe for the majority of decisions about what assistance you may be entitled to.
Please contact us if you have not heard from us within a reasonable period of time. See Contact ACC Claims for our contact information.
What happens next?
ACC will advise you whether your application is accepted. If your needs are straightforward, we can approve the home help you need without having to do a detailed assessment.
Once ACC has approved your application you’ll need to choose who you want to provide your home help. You can choose from the following three options:
- A home help agency that has a contract with ACC (we’ll give you a list of contracted providers).
- A non-contracted agency.
- A private caregiver (someone you know, such as a family member).
If you choose to use an agency:
- ACC pays agencies direct on receipt of their bill, up to an approved amount.
- The agency is responsible for meeting all the legal and tax obligations of an employer.
- We strongly recommend you use an ACC-contracted home help agency in preference to a non-contracted agency, because we check that they provide high quality, professional care.
If you choose to use a private caregiver:
- You and your caregiver both need to be aware that you may have income tax, GST and other legal obligations.
- We strongly recommend that you and your caregiver get advice from an accountant or tax advisor – they can tell you about the implications of entering into a formal employment relationship (ie you are the employer and the employer is the employee) versus being self-employed
- You will also need to decide whether you want ACC to pay your caregiver directly or pay you directly, so that you can pay your caregiver.
Related legislation
Accident Compensation (AC) Act 2001
- Sections81-84: Social Rehabilitation (external website)
- Schedule1, Section17: Home Help (external website)
Published: 26March2010