How the Carevo activity rating works
Some providers on Carevo show a Strong activity rating. This page sets out exactly how that is calculated, so you can decide how much weight to give it.
Read this first. The activity rating measures how a provider behaves on Carevo: whether they act on enquiries and whether the people who enquired say they were helped. It is not an endorsement, a recommendation, or an assessment of the quality or safety of the care they deliver. A provider can have a strong activity rating and still not be the right fit for you.
Where the data comes from
Every provider starts at a baseline of 50. The rating moves only when a real enquiry produces evidence. There is no manual adjustment, no editorial input, and no way to pay for a different result.
The evidence comes from three places: whether a provider who connected on an enquiry actually opened the family's contact details, what the care seeker told us afterwards about whether they found help and from whom, and what the provider told us about whether they made contact. Two of those three come from the family rather than the provider, which is deliberate.
Every signal, and what it is worth
Each connection is classified into exactly one of six signals. Most sit at zero. The model is deliberately hard to move upward and easy to move downward, so a high rating means repeated evidence rather than a single good week.
| Signal | Effect | When it applies | Why it is weighted this way |
|---|---|---|---|
| Found help | +3 | The person who made the enquiry explicitly named this provider as the one who helped them. | The strongest signal available. It is attributed by the care seeker, not asserted by the provider, so it carries the most weight. |
| Tried | +1 | The provider clicked through to contact details and the care seeker said they got help, but did not name which provider helped. | A real but lower-confidence positive. Someone helped, and this provider made contact, but we cannot attribute the outcome. |
| Contacted | 0 | The provider clicked through to contact details and no survey response came back either way. | Making contact is the minimum expected. It clears the hoarding bar but does not earn a positive on its own. |
| Neutral | 0 | The provider clicked through, the care seeker said they did not get help, and the provider said they got no response. | Both sides tried and the connection did not happen. No fault either way, so no movement. |
| Hoarding | −1 | The provider connected on the enquiry and then never clicked through to the contact details. | Connecting on an enquiry takes it out of the pool for other providers. Not acting on it leaves the family waiting. |
| Contacted, not helped | −1 | The care seeker said they were not helped, and the provider said they did make contact. | Contact happened and the person still was not helped. This is the only signal that touches the service itself, and it is recorded from both sides. |
Scores are clamped to a 0 to 100 range. Connecting on an enquiry and acting on it is treated as the baseline expectation, not an achievement, which is why "Contacted" scores zero.
How and when it is calculated
90-day rolling window
Only enquiries from the last 90 days count. Older evidence drops out entirely, so the rating reflects current behaviour and a provider cannot coast on past performance.
Recalculated daily, from scratch
The score is rebuilt from the underlying enquiries every day rather than incremented. There is no accumulated history to drift out of line with the evidence.
24-hour grace period
An enquiry is not scored until it is at least 24 hours old, so a provider is never marked down for not having responded yet.
Shown only above the threshold
A rating appears only when a provider has at least 2 scored signals in the window and a score above the 50 baseline. It disappears automatically when either stops being true.
What the rating does not measure
- Whether the care delivered is good. We do not observe care, so we cannot rate it.
- Complaints. We hold no complaints register. Complaints go to the NDIS Commission or the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.
- Reviews or star ratings. We do not publish them; there is no review corpus behind this number.
- Payment. The rating cannot be bought and there is no paid adjustment. Note that connecting on an enquiry, the strongest input, needs a paid subscription, so subscribers are more likely to build the activity this rating counts.
- How long a provider has existed, how big it is, or how much it charges.
If you have a concern about the quality or safety of care, contact the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission or the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. They are the bodies with the power to investigate. Carevo is not.
Known limitations
A methodology page that only lists strengths is marketing. These are the reasons the number can mislead, stated plainly so you can weigh it yourself.
Small samples move sharply
A provider needs only 2 scored signals to qualify for display. Early on, one outcome can move the score several points. Treat a new rating as weaker evidence than a long-standing one.
Absence is not a negative
Most providers have no rating shown. That usually means too few scored signals, not a bad record. A provider with no rating may be excellent and simply new to Carevo, or rarely matched in their area.
Survey responses are self-reported
The positive and negative signals depend on what care seekers and providers tell us after a connection. Not everyone replies, and people who had a strong experience either way are likelier to.
It only sees Carevo
Work a provider does through their own referrals, other platforms or direct contact is invisible here. This measures a slice of their activity, not their business.
For providers
There is nothing to opt into and nothing to buy. The rating responds to two things: opening the contact details on enquiries you connect on, and the outcome the family reports afterwards. Connecting on enquiries you do not intend to act on is the one behaviour that reliably lowers it, because it holds the family up and takes the enquiry out of the pool for someone else.
If you believe your rating is wrong, contact us and we will show you the underlying enquiries it was calculated from.