Aged Care Financial Reporting
Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Presented by:
Chair:
- Eleanor Browne – Assistant Secretary, Market Intelligence Branch, Department of Health and Aged Care
Speakers:
- Jarrod Bowd – Director, Financial Reporting Analysis Section, Department of Health and Aged Care
- Ransome McLean – Director, Emergency Planning and Preparedness Section, Department of Health and Aged Care
- Jodette Kotz – Director, Financial and Prudential Reform Section, Department of Health and Aged Care
- Aden Pulford – Acting Director, Residential Care Funding Assurance Section, Department of Health and Aged Care
[Opening visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Aged Care Financial Reporting’, ‘Webinar’, ’10 September 2024’, ‘agedcareengagement.health.gov.au]
[The visuals during this webinar are of each speaker presenting in turn via video, with reference to the content of a PowerPoint presentation being played on screen]
Eleanor Browne:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Eleanor Browne’, ‘Assistant Secretary’, ‘Market Intelligence Branch’]
Thank you all for attending today’s webinar. I’m Eleanor Browne, Assistant Secretary from the Market Intelligence Branch in the Department of Health and Aged Care.
I’ll begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we are virtually meeting today. I am based in Canberra on the lands of the Ngunnawal people. I acknowledge and pay my respects to their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this city and this region. I also extend that acknowledgment and respect to other families with a connection to this region and any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who are here with us today.
This webinar is part of a regular series. It will be of particular interest to those who are involved in completing, submitting or reviewing financial reporting for aged care providers. It’s an opportunity to engage with the sector on where we’re at in our financial reporting cycle, to flag any upcoming changes to what we collect and to provide an overview of how we use the information that we collect.
I’ll start with a little bit of housekeeping before we get into today’s session. After our presentation there will be a short Q&A session. You can submit questions on the right hand side of your screen any time. All questions and answers including any that we aren’t able to get to in today’s session will be published in an FAQ document on our website in the coming weeks. You might have to activate the Q&A function before submitting your question. You can do this by clicking on the Q&A icon. There is no option for attendees to turn on their video or microphone. And the webinar slides can be downloaded from our website and a recording will be published in the coming days.
Before we get into today’s content I want to note where we’re at in our reporting cycle and flag a couple of recent developments. Firstly in terms of collection timeframes the 22-23 Aged Care Financial Report is now open for completion and that closes on the 31st of October. The Quarter 4 Quarterly Financial Report for the April to June 2024 period has closed and Quarter 1 reporting, that’s for the July to September period, will be open in early October due on the 4th of November.
In terms of publications the next Quarterly Financial Snapshot covering Quarter 3 of the 23-24 financial year will be published in mid-September and the Quarter 2 publication is available now on our website. Towards the end of September there will be a provider preview period ahead of the publication of the Quarter 4 reporting on My Aged Care as part of the dollars going to care initiative. And we will aim to hold our next webinar early next year.
I also wanted to note that we have recently published the 22-23 Financial Report on the Australian Aged Care Sector or FRAACS. I won’t go into the findings from FRAACS in detail today as we have more recent data available from our Quarterly Financial Reports which flow into our Quarterly Financial Snapshots but I’ll note that FRAACS did see a significant improvement in financial performance from 21-22 to 22-23 across both home and residential care but with a greater improvement seen in the resi sector largely due to the impact of AN-ACC. The FRAACS is a much longer report than the Quarterly Snapshot and it’s drawn from the annual Aged Care Financial Report. So it provides more detailed information on the state of the sector and it allows for longer term comparison with reports previously published by the Aged Care Financing Authority.
Finally and just before we dive into today’s content I’ll give a brief overview of today’s speakers in the session that we’ve got before us. Jodette is going to start with a brief overview of the most recent insights from our latest Quarterly Financial Snapshot. Jarrod will then give an overview of the ACFR collection. In particular he’ll highlight the key fields that flow through to publication on My Aged Care and talk through some specific issues we’ve noticed where provider reporting could be improved or where we’ve received a number of queries. Jarrod, Aden and Rans will than talk us through the next QFR reporting period with an overview of the data assurance activity that the Department is undertaking to improve the quality of QFR data. We will also look at the outbreak management expenses reporting and how this should be reported effectively. And we’ll walk through residential care reporting for care minutes and 24/7 including the role and focus of care time reporting assessments which are a program of audits the Department is undertaking to improve care time reporting.
Thanks to everyone for taking the time to join us today and for your interest in financial reporting. And I’ll now hand over to Jodette. Thank you.
Jodette Kotz:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Quarterly Financial Snapshot insights’, ‘Jodette Kotz’, ‘Director’, ‘Financial and Prudential Reform Section’]
Thank you Eleanor. Good afternoon. My name is Jodette Kotz and I’m the Director of the Financial and Prudential Reform Section. My team is responsible for the development and publication of the Quarterly Financial Snapshot or the QFS. The QFS mainly draws upon data submitted by providers through the Quarterly Financial Report. As you may know the first QFS was first published in February 2023. Since then we have published another five reports with the next report covering Quarter 3 23-24 due to be published in mid-September. This afternoon I will take you through the headline financial results reported by residential and home care providers. I will then talk through results reported by residential aged care providers in one focus area, food and nutrition.
On this slide we have displayed some of the key features of financial performance for the residential aged care sector. The chart on the left hand side shows the year to date net profit before tax per resident per day. Results are presented at the sector level across the six quarters. Since we started reporting we have seen the year to date net profit before tax increase from a negative $27.89 per resident per day to a positive $8.75 per resident per day in the most recent quarter reported which is Quarter 2 23-24.
On the right hand side we can see the performance results for Quarter 2 23-24 which is October to December 23. In this quarter 64.6% of providers were profitable, up from 46.4% this time last year, Quarter 2 22-23. As a result 59.3% of residents across Australia were being serviced by a profitable provider in Quarter 2 23-24. This is up from 29.6% of residents in Quarter 2 of 22-23. There are a few key Government reforms which have influenced these results.
A major contributor to the improved revenue is the increase in Government funding provided through the AN-ACC funding model. Over the year between Quarter 2 22-23 and Quarter 2 23-24 AN-ACC funding has increased by over a billion.
This funding increase is in response to the Fair Work Commission’s interim pay increase of 15% in the aged care work value case and 5.75% in the annual wage review.
On the expense side we also saw an increase in wages as staffing adjusted following the introduction of the mandatory care minute and 24/7 registered nurse requirements. In addition to increased wage expenses another contributor was residential aged care providers writing off bed licences. This follows the Government’s decision to no longer allocate residential aged care places to providers through a bed licencing system. Instead older people will be directly allocated a residential aged care place so they can receive care from their chosen provider. This policy change aims to increase choice and competition in aged care services. We are expecting to see a continuation of the bed licence write offs expenses until 30 June 2025 when that expense ceases.
Finally it is expected that labour costs will continue to increase as services start to increase salary and wages to meet both their service specific total care minutes and registered nurse targets. At the time of reporting 50% of services were not meeting these targets.
Now we’ll move onto the home care results where we’ve pulled out the same headline figures for comparison. As you can see on the left hand side the net profit before tax across the home care sector has been more stable across the six quarters when it is compared to the residential aged care sector. The figures have ranged from a low of $3.59 per resident per day in Quarter 2 of 22‑23 to a high of $5.68 in Quarter 1 of 23-24.
On the right hand side we can see the performance results for Quarter 2 23-24. In this quarter 75.9% of providers were profitable. This is up from 73.8% in Quarter 2 22-23.
As a result 81.3% of home care recipients were being serviced by profitable providers in Quarter 2 23-24. This is up from 70.2% in Quarter 2 of 22-23 or the comparable time the previous year.
Like the residential sector the changes in revenue and expenses in the home care sector are being influenced by some broader reforms. Revenue increases are primarily attributed to an 11.9% increase in the home care subsidy and supplements due to the Fair Work Commission decision for an interim increase to minimum award rates of 15% from 30 June 23. As expected this decision has also resulted in direct care expenses for home care providers rising during this time.
We will now touch briefly on our QFS focus area for the webinar, food and nutrition in residential aged care. We’ve picked this topic for today as providers have indicated it would be of interest and we’ll look to focus on a different topic for each webinar. As you can see on the chart on the left hand side the median total costs of food and ingredients per resident per day has increased over time. In Quarter 2 23-24 the median cost was $14.57 per resident per day. This is a 17.2% increase from the median cost in Quarter 1 22-23 which was $12.43 per resident per day. Additionally residential aged care providers are spending on average 83.1% of their total food and ingredients costs on fresh food and ingredients.
It is important when looking at this data to remember that the amount spent on food and ingredients per resident per day is only one indicator of food quality. It should not be taken in isolation as it does not consider important factors such as residents’ satisfaction with the meals, the cooking and preparation method and overall nutritional status or needs of the residents. Additionally the improvement in results between Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of 23-24 has been influenced by much improvement in data quality submitted by providers. Following service level previews of food and nutrition information on My Aged Care during this period providers have had the opportunity to correct the data submitted.
The last thing I wanted to touch on today is the new QFS data extract which will be published alongside the Quarter 3 23-24 report on the Department’s website. The extract will contain all headline figures from the QFS reports published to date including financial performance, care minutes, wages and viability results. We are publishing this information in Excel format following feedback from the sector that it would be value for their own monitoring and benchmarking work. We look forward to receiving your feedback on the extract – and we hope you enjoy this intiative – today’s presentation and if you have any other feedback on the QFS reports more broadly. We will place our email address in the comments section in a moment and we welcome your thoughts.
Thank you again for your time today. I’m now going to hand over to Jarrod who will speak on the requirements of the Aged Care Financial Report.
Jarrod Bowd:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Aged Care Financial Report’, ‘Jarrod Bowd’, ‘Director’, ‘Financial Reporting and Analysis Section’]
Thank you Jodette and good afternoon to those listening in. As El flagged earlier in the presentation the Aged Care Financial Report portal opened on the 9th of August and will close on the 31st of October. In contrast to the QFR which is on the Government Provider Management System the ACFR is on the Forms Administration portal.
There will be a strong emphasis on data quality assurance for this year’s ACFR. The data will be relied upon by the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority for the pricing framework for residential aged care services which will be delivered to Government next year. The more reliable the data is the more informed decision making on funding implications will be.
We’re also conscious that as ACFR data for an organisation’s financial performance flows through to publication on My Aged Care we aim to reach out to providers where the data appears incorrect to prevent misleading data being published. We hope this avoids embarrassment for the provider or unfair comparisons being made by a person between providers when they are considering their provider of choice.
This slide provides a brief overview of what ACFR data is to be displayed on My Aged Care. It repeats messaging from the last webinar but it’s important to briefly touch upon again given the ACFR is currently open. For home care and residential care providers ACFR data is displayed on the Finance and Operations tab and is used for expenditure, income and surplus or deficit information.
Please note that your 22-23 ACFR data will continue to be published on My Aged Care until February 2025 when the 23-24 ACFR data is scheduled to be displayed.
I’ll now cover a few areas that providers should focus on to reduce the need for validation follow ups. I’ll begin with home care providers.
This slide shows an extract of the Home Care Package Income and Expenditure Statement. For home care we see a high number of providers allocating 100% of their income against direct care services or sub-contracted services. As a result of the 100% allocation of income to care these providers display favourably on My Aged Care in comparison to competitors as there’s no allocation towards administration or other non-care items.
Although the Department’s not privy to the individual monthly statements the home care providers have in place with care recipients it’s highly unlikely that any provider would record that all of their care recipients have 100% of their package budget allocation allocated towards direct care components. For the benefit of context the sector median was 69% in 22-23 which is a long way short I guess of the 100% that some of the providers have reported.
Analysis of the providers showing 100% against care found that a whole majority reported in My Aged Care that they charge for care management and/or package management. So it’s reasonable to assume some of the income for the financial year should not have been placed against care but rather care management and package management.
Care management forms part of every home care package even for providers that solely have care recipients I guess that are self-managed care recipients. The Department is still aware that providers still charge against the package for care management for those care recipients.
Package management amongst other things covers the cost for compliance activities such as reporting through the ACFR and QFR so expect to see providers meeting reporting requirements for them to be charging care recipients against package management.
In summary if you charge care recipients for care management and/or package management please record data against care management service fees and package management service fees under income. Conversely for expense reporting if you have staff engaged in care management work we expect to see expenses recorded under care management and for package management under administration and support.
Turning attention to residential aged care. There will be a strong focus in the ACFR currently on reporting of administration expenses. Once again sorry to cover content from the previous webinar but now the ACFR portal is open the timing is ideal for a brief recap.
Similar to the home care issue we see a higher than expected number of providers allocating 100% of their administration expenses against care. We ask that providers distribute administration expenses between care, hotelling, accommodation and COVID-19 using a data driven approach. The allocation should be based on the underlying drivers of administration activity for the eight sub-categories of administration listed under the residential expenses section.
The accurate reporting of administration expenses is important because this information is used to understand the cost of care to inform future funding and policy decisions.
This and the next slide show a pretty detailed example of how the insurance sub-category could be allocated and how this relates to the final figures reported in the ACFR.
I won’t speak to the slides given the detail involved in both but for residential care providers I strongly encourage reviewing the slides in the coming days which are available in this presentation and currently published online.
This is just a really brief slide here I guess. It just provides a few handy tips to minimise the likelihood of being followed up at a later date to validate information. Very conscious I guess providers for both the QFR and the ACFR it is a frustrating thing to be followed up post‑submission sometimes to validate information so here’s a couple of tips to maybe help in particular with the ACFR process.
When completing your ACFR submission ensure that the totals in the general purpose financial statements match what you’ve reported in the approved provider level income statement, balance sheet and cashflow statement.
If there are any variances send the reasons why to health@formsadministration.com.au when you submit.
The last one there, if validation or explanation messages appear when completing your submission and you’re unsure if the data is correct please contact Forms Administration to discuss before submission rather than trying to find an alternative workaround figure to try to find a way to get around the validation error.
We’ll now shift our attention to the Quarterly Financial Report. Before I provide an overview I’d like to hand over to Aden to talk through care time assessment reporting within the context of the ACFR.
Aden Pulford:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Reporting assessments’, ‘Aden Pulford’, ‘Acting Director’, ‘Residential Care Funding Assurance Section’]
Thanks Jarrod and good afternoon. My name’s Aden Pulford and I’m the Acting Director for the Residential Care Funding Assurance Section. I want to take this opportunity to talk about care time reporting assessments, what they are, why they’re important and touch on some common reporting issues we’re seeing from providers.
We began conducting care time reporting assessments late last year in 2023 aiming to engage with all approved providers of residential care by mid next year. Reporting assessments check the accuracy of care minutes and 24/7 coverage reported by providers in their QFR and monthly reports. This program provides the Department an assurance over the accuracy of reporting to support policy, pricing, regulation and consumer choice. The Department takes an educative approach to responding to errors in reporting, supporting providers to improve their reporting and record keeping practices.
In the following slides I’m going to talk about two common reporting issues that we are seeing during our reporting assessments. Staff categorisation and unreported gaps in 24/7 coverage.
An issue we’re seeing across our assessments relates to the mis-categorisation of staff. On screen is an example of miscategorised staff with lifestyle workers counted as PCWs. This overstates the reported eligible direct care hours that are used towards calculating the care minute responsibility. Misreporting in this manner is serious as it materially increases your star rating misleading consumers.
When reporting direct care hours it is important to only report hours performed in line with the correct worker category, for example not reporting lifestyle workers as PCWs.
The care minute responsibility guide goes into detail as to what type of employees count towards PCWs. There are specific award categories and equivalent Enterprise Agreement classifications that are allowed to count. I recommend referring to these guides when preparing reporting.
On screen as well is a QR code linking to the model pack. The model pack outlines the materials that we solicit to assure ourselves that reporting is accurate as part of the reporting assessment. It is valuable to familiarise yourself with this while preparing reporting so that you understand what materials are likely to be sought later so that that can be retained through that report preparation process.
We’ll go to the next slide. Another common reporting issue that we are seeing relates to 24/7 registered nurse coverage. Specifically we are identifying gaps in coverage that were not reported in the RN 24/7 report. We understand that there may be limitations to provider systems and/or processes which impact the ability to identify absences when preparing the report. On screen is a sample of the 24/7 RN coverage tool, a resource the Department has developed to assist providers in identifying gaps in coverage. The provider can add all of the shifts from their RNs in a given month into this tool and it will identify where there are gaps in coverage. I would encourage anyone that is preparing these reports to refer to this tool for assistance in preparation. I would also encourage anyone who has any questions about these resources or reporting assessments more generally to contact the team via the ANACCReportingAssessments@health.gov.au email address. Thank you. I’d now like to hand back over to Jarrod who will speak to the Quarterly Financial Report. Thank you.
Jarrod Bowd:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Quarterly Financial Report’, ‘Jarrod Bowd’, ‘Director’, ‘Financial Reporting and Analysis Section’]
Thanks Aden. I can confirm there will be no changes to Quarter 1 24-25 QFR reporting. We’ve received questions in relation to reporting of EN minutes for Quarter 2 onwards with the change from 1 October 24 to increase flexibility to meet up to 10% of service level RN targets with care time provided by ENs. We’ve seen a fair few questions on this one actually. Please note that despite the policy change providers are not to change the current way they report RN and EN times and expenses. The Department will combine the data for the purposes of RN care minutes.
The Department’s currently focused on improving data quality across key fields. Providers will note to date food and nutrition, hourly wage rates and care time reporting have been heavily prioritised. You may have been contacted where a datapoint falls outside of an expected range or where there’s been a significant shift for that individual provider or service. Thanks to those providers I guess who have responded to validate the figures. This has assisted the Department to build I guess a great intelligence and understanding not just of the sector but of those individual providers.
We’ve seen considerable improvement since these checks have commenced from Quarter 1 22‑23 all the way to Quarter 4 23-24. And we expect the incidence of checks to reduce over time as the reporting matures and we understand individual providers’ circumstances more.
If you do have an issue I guess with the checks please get in touch with us via ACFRQFRqueries@health.gov.au.
Okay. Data quality assurance in the context of the QFR. I’d just like to firstly cover I guess two issues for Home Care Package providers only.
Firstly it’s common for home care providers to report hourly wage rate data for RNs and ENs but not to provide data in the home care labour costs and hours tab for the labour costs and labour hours worked in the quarter against RNs and ENs. We suspect this might be because providers have RN and EN staff on their payroll but may not necessarily be actually delivering RN or EN type services to the care recipients in that quarter. We’re aware I guess from previous surveys of data that the Department’s done RN and EN usage amongst care recipients in the Home Care Package program is quite low so we suspect a lot of providers to probably have zeroes or not record amounts there.
In short I guess if you’re not delivering the service there’s no need to enter a rate for the hourly rates of pay as the Department is interested in monitoring pay rates of staff actually delivering care and services.
The second issue we have identified is that providers are incorrectly reporting information in the home care direct labour costs and hours section. I’ve got an example up there on the slide. In the example the provider has reported $200,000 for the quarter for registered nurse direct care costs and 100,000 hours for the quarter for registered nurse direct hours. In the example the hourly cost per worked hour is $2 and may be a result of incorrect reporting of QFR data for either the cost or the hours or both.
Just mention I guess before submitting your QFR if you could please ensure that you check each data item reported in the home care labour costs and hours using the same methodology, same calculation.
Please also note the calculated hourly cost per worked hour for employees is expected to be higher than the average hourly wage rate that you report in the QFR unlike the hourly wage rates which is the base hourly pay rate and excludes on costs, that direct care labour will include all on costs including superannuation and leave.
I’d now like to hand over to Ransome who will talk through the outbreak management expenses reporting that was recently added to the Quarterly Financial Report.
Ransome McLean:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Outbreak Management Expenses’, ‘Ransome Mclean’, ‘Director’, ‘Emergency Planning and Preparedness Section’]
Thank you Jarrod. My name is Ransome McLean. I’m the Director of the Emergency Planning and Preparedness Section. As Jarrod mentioned I’ll be talking to you today about the outbreak management expenditure items in the QFR. The Department has previously spoken to you about the importance of accurate reporting on these items. This reporting is crucial for evaluating the financial impacts of outbreak management and helps inform Government decisions on future outbreak management support. It also helps to ensure we can keep the burden to access these supports to a minimum. Reporting on outbreak management expenditure through the QFR keeps it all in one spot rather than having to report separately as you might have to under a grant based arrangement.
We do acknowledge the challenges associated with these new reporting requirements and want to reiterate that there is support available to assist. Data definitions for outbreak management expenses set out the type of costs that should be included for each of the expense categories. These definitions can be found in the Residential Expenses and Hours tab of the definitions spreadsheet. If you’re still unsure of how certain costs should be recorded please reach out via the email address displayed on the slide.
I now want to talk about some of the data quality issues the Department has identified through a preliminary analysis of outbreak management expense data reported for Quarter 4. This is the first quarter that this data was reported through the QFR and we were expecting there might be some teething problems. Hopefully with a bit more time to plan and a bit more focus most of these and particularly the ones I’m about to touch on can be rectified in the next quarter’s reporting.
We have observed a number of instances where providers reported no occurrences of outbreaks during the reporting period even though other data sources indicated that outbreaks did take place. Please ensure you report all outbreaks experienced for the reporting period in question.
A number of providers reported zero expenditure associated with outbreak management even when they have experienced an outbreak during the reporting period. We expect an outbreak would almost certainly incur costs related to managing that outbreak and it is concerning to see no costs being reported in these cases. Please ensure you contact us if you require assistance with reporting these expenditures.
We also note that some providers have identified certain outbreak management expenses as other outbreak costs when they should be classed under another expense category. An example of this would be the classification of personal protective equipment purchases such as masks and respirators as an other outbreak cost instead of as a preventative measures cost. I would like to again stress the importance of reaching out if you require assistance with reporting your outbreak management expenditure.
Finally we have received a number of enquiries concerning clarification of preventative measures costs. These costs can vary depending on the provider’s individual circumstances. Generally these include expenses related to actions taken to reduce the risk of infections or outbreaks. For example cleaning costs incurred as a result of sanitising high touch surfaces could be considered preventative measures costs related to outbreak management. Cleaning costs associated with external cleaning of windows to make it easier to see through should not be classified as an outbreak management cost. As noted on the previous slide if you are still unsure of how certain costs should be recorded please reach out to the Department.
Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about this today. I’ll now pass back to El.
Eleanor Browne:
Thanks Rans and thanks everyone. I’d now like to welcome Jodette, Jarrod, Aden and Ransome back to the stage and we’ll start our Q&A session. Firstly just to apologise. I can see from the chat some people had issues accessing the slides today. Hopefully you’ve been able to access them now. And we have put in the chat a link to access those slides on our website as well and of course we’ll be recording the session and publishing it on the website as well for those who’ve had trouble with access today.
I’ll start with some of the questions that popped into the chat during the presentations and then I’ll scroll back to the top and work through some that are coming through or have come through kind of later in the presentation. I can see there’s a question here, an anonymous question.
Q: During the last QFR submission period there were IT issues in the days leading up to the deadline that prevented providers from submitting information. What should providers do should this occur again?
So I just wanted to recognise that we did have some issues with myGov and GPMS in the lead up to the last QFR submission period and that many providers did experience issues in the last two work days of the quarter and recognise that that was really frustrating for those trying to do the right thing and submit those reports on time, and meant additional time needed to be set aside to do that. We did try to get communications out to the sector as quickly as we could but I know there was a period of uncertainty there and understandably frustration where providers weren’t sure what was happening with the system.
We do know that a number of providers got in touch with Forms Administration to advise of these issues and we really appreciate providers being so proactive in getting in touch with us. And of course we are in contact regularly with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to ensure that they’re aware, that they should not take regulatory action for late submissions in a situation where our IT system has not allowed submission.
And I want to assure providers really that if this does happen again we will communicate with you as quickly as possible and of course work with the Commission to make sure that providers aren’t impacted.
Another question I saw in the chat. I’ll just have a look here. A question for Jarrod around outbreak and COVID-19 data categories.
Q: Is there a plan to align the two outbreak/COVID-19 data categories between the ACFR and the QFR? Currently one asks for outbreak management costs and the other asks for COVID-19 only.
Jarrod Bowd:
Yeah. Thanks El. It’s a good question. It’s one that’s come up I guess both within the Department and outside the Department so there is interest in this one. At the moment the answer is no to aligning it. It’s not to say maybe not in the future. But at the moment it’s a no. For context I guess we’ve just started collecting outbreak management expenses on a quarterly basis including COVID‑19 and I know at the moment in the ACFR since COVID-19 came in we have been collecting data just on COVID-19 expenses and for other outbreak management expenses they’ve been I guess accounted for separately through the ACFR. So I do acknowledge I guess a bit of the clumsiness in the fact that we do report quarterly I guess looking at for outbreak management and different types of outbreaks and then when it gets to the annual one we’re just collecting the information from COVID-19.
I think just at the moment with providers I guess noting the hourly wage data and outbreak management expenses making any single change I guess to either the ACFR and the QFR we don’t take lightly because we do understand there are complications and things that providers need to work through to make sure that they’re reporting it correctly. So not to say in the future that it’s not possible that we will align and it will be interesting I guess through the chat in the QFA if people do actually see benefit in something like this give that question a tick or put them in the comments. But at this stage the answer is no I guess to aligning it.
Eleanor Browne:
Thanks Jarrod.
I’ve got a question here. I think this one is for you Rans. Just another question on outbreak management.
Q: Are providers only expected to report outbreak management costs if an outbreak occurred during the reporting period?
Ransome McLean:
Yeah. Thanks El. That’s a good question. From the Department’s perspective outbreak management costs can occur throughout the year while providers are preparing for outbreaks. So we do expect all providers to have some costs related to outbreak management in each reporting period regardless of whether they had an outbreak. An example of a cost incurred in the absence of an outbreak during the period might be the cost of purchasing rapid antigen test kits. This might be done in preparation for an outbreak or to undertake surveillance activities even when there isn’t an outbreak occurring. So this would be classified as a preventative measure cost and should still be reported even if the provider, the service hasn’t incurred an outbreak during the period.
Eleanor Browne:
Thanks Rans. Jarrod this one’s for you in terms of ACFR timeframes and for future webinars as well.
Q: Is it possible to bring forward the ACFR content in this webinar to a date much closer if not before 30 June given many providers need to be well progressed with ACFR compilation by this time?
Jarrod Bowd:
Yeah. Definitely. I guess as a new branch with the new QFR coming in and things like that I guess we’re working through some of the changes just like providers are but for the 24-25 ACFR I guess we’ll be presenting one before the 30th of June probably weeks if not a month or so beforehand to kind of just talk about what it will look like, but we will still probably have a follow up webinar. I guess the next webinar might be in July or August once it’s open just to actually still cover some things in the ACFR where from the first four or five weeks we’ve noticed through the Helpdesk function or through other correspondence providers are having trouble. We still want to make sure that we’re looping back around. So it’s probably covered both before the 30th of June and then post 30th of June. But definitely I think this year we might have provided the context I think on the 9th of July, that webinar, but we will bring that information forward next year. So good question.
Eleanor Browne:
Thanks Jarrod. It is and it’s really useful feedback for us. We are working on our kind of future comms plan and making sure that we are communicating with the sector at the most useful time and with information that’s most useful and interesting to you. So please do feel free in the feedback today to the webinar itself to give us any feedback you like around what you’d like to hear more of or less of in our webinars, what the most useful timing from your perspective is and we can build that into our future comms plan as well.
Okay. I’ve got a question for Aden around administration costs.
Q: Administration is increasingly time consuming and costly but we aren’t being paid for this increased burden. How can the Department expect us to complete this additional reporting?
Aden Pulford:
Absolutely. Thank you. So in terms of as that relates to care time reporting assessments the information and documents we request as part of these assessments should form part of the information used to prepare the reports in and of themselves. And so retaining that information as you’re preparing the report can help make that process simpler. We’ve also developed support tools to assist providers in providing this information in the form of the model pack that we discussed at the last one of these webinars and the 24/7 coverage tool we discussed today. We’ll continue to investigate improvements and other ways we can make that simpler for providers. And just to address the part about administration costs not being paid for, administration costs are addressed by IHACPA’s pricing advice so they do observe increases in the cost of administration or changes in the cost of administration and do account for that when they provide the Government their advice with respect to subsidy amounts. And to the extent that that relates to care their advice does capture that.
Eleanor Browne:
Thanks Aden. Jodette I’ve got a question for you that I think might have popped up during the QFS section.
Q: Can the Department provide more useful data to help providers compare their performance?
Jodette Kotz:
Thanks Eleanor. Yes. That’s a good question. Look we are committed to increasing transparency through the collection and publication of financial information. In doing so we’re constantly seeking ways to improve the quality of information and insights published to ensure that it is of value to older people and providers. Each time we publish information in the QFS or on My Aged Care we actively identify opportunities to simplify the information and highlight important insights. As I mentioned earlier over the coming weeks we will publish an Excel data extract which contains all the headline figures from the QFS reports that are published to date including financial performance, care minutes, wages. This is in response to feedback we received from providers that they want something that they can manipulate to use for their own benchmarking purposes. We’d welcome additional feedback on the QFS reports, the information published on My Aged Care or the new data extract. And your feedback will support us to continue to refine the format and content of the information we publish. Thanks for that Eleanor.
Eleanor Browne:
Thanks Jodette. That’s right. I think the feedback that we receive is really helpful and it does help us look at how we can improve this information or what’s useful to the sector going forward. And I am really pleased that we’ll be publishing that data extract that came out of direct feedback we received from a provider saying that that would be useful for them to benchmark their performance. So I think that’s a great initiative that we can expect to see come out shortly.
Okay. Jarrod a question for you about QFR and ACFR.
Q: Most of the information has been reported through the Quarterly Report. Why do we need to submit an annual one as well?
Jarrod Bowd:
Yeah. Thanks El. We’ll probably respond in more detail I guess in the Q&A after this but we do ask for more things – I guess it’s more comprehensive, the ACFR, than the QFR. The QFR I guess we do – although we look for high data quality in what’s being supplied we’re conscious that we do ask for data to be supplied within 35 days for three of the quarters. Quarter 2 we do extend that for another ten days. So we’re conscious that some providers there may be a delay I guess in invoicing that comes through from third parties to that organisation so we do note I guess the ACFR does pick up more comprehensive data in the data fields that we’re collecting things on like getting data on the parent entity. But we also do understand I guess some of the data quality where some of the providers may be missing some of the quarterly data and getting their invoices in on time. With the Annual Financial Report collecting data over a full month period rather than a five week period, more comprehensive, and there are end of year adjustments I guess that different providers advise us on in terms of the ACFR providing a more comprehensive picture of the data.
Eleanor Browne:
Thanks Jarrod. A question here. I’ll answer this one.
Q; What will happen to financial reporting requirements under the new Act?
Great question. Of course from those who are of course watching the news we know that the new Aged Care Act hasn’t yet been introduced but of course we are working on the fundamental principle that under the new Act a provider who currently is required to complete financial reporting will still be required to complete financial reporting. So that means for the providers that are currently fulfilling requirements under the QFR and ACFR those requirements will continue. And we will continue to work with the sector as we do through webinars like these to ensure that if there are changes to reporting requirements going forward they’re communicated early and there’s time built in to adjust to those changes as well. But the fundamental principle that we’re working towards is that a provider who currently reports will still be required to complete those reports.
A question for Jodette around QFS and the information being published on My Aged Care.
Q: Why do sector level results in the QFS differ from information on My Aged Care?
Jodette Kotz:
Thank you Eleanor. This is another good question and one I asked myself when I first turned up here. So some provider level results published on My Aged Care will incur a comparison with a sector level result listed as a sector average. Sector level results published in the QFS show the median result across the sector and they may differ from the My Aged Care sector average. This is because the QFS presents the median results at a provider level while the Find a Provider tool on My Aged Care measures and presents the median results at a service level.
I guess I can assure you that the Department undertakes quality assurance and data validation checks to ensure the published data in both the QFS and on the My Aged Care site Find a Provider tool is very accurate. Eleanor a mathematical question.
Eleanor Browne:
Thanks Jodette. I can see we’ve still got lots of questions popping through in the chat which is really fantastic and it’s great to see the engagement and the interest that we’ve got in these webinars. So I’m not sure that we will manage to get through all of the questions that are popping through in the time we’ve got today until 3:00 but as I mentioned earlier of course the questions that we aren’t able to pick up in the session today we will make sure we respond to in our FAQ document that we’ll send around after the session. So just want to assure people if you’ve still got questions please continue putting them in the chat and we will get to them. If not before 3:00 today we’ll scoop those up and respond following the session today.
So I’ll keep working through the questions that we’ve got that I’ve seen pop in on the chat. Now this question is a question for Ransome around outbreak management costs.
Q: Why are providers expected to provide an explanation if other outbreak costs are greater than 30% of their total outbreak costs for a service?
Ransome McLean:
Yeah. Thanks El. That’s another great question. So look the Department has done a fair bit of work to understand what the regular costs of preparing for, managing and recovering from an outbreak are and they should be represented in the other four categories of the outbreak management costs. So we don’t expect other outbreak costs to represent such a large percentage of total outbreak management expenditure. Preliminary analysis of outbreak management expense data reported from Quarter 4 indicates there are instances of providers misclassifying expenses as other outbreak costs when they should be classed under another expense category. So I would encourage all providers to really look at the definitions and have a think about how those initial four categories can be used to apportion their outbreak management costs and really only using the other outbreak costs category when they can’t find a logical connection or talking to the Department to work through that a little bit. Because really doing that extra bit of work assists the Department to understand if there is a significant outbreak management cost that we haven’t considered in the other category and that’s really why we ask you to kind of explain what that is once it gets above the 30% mark, so that we can understand if we should include that cost in one of the initial four categories going forward. I hope that helps.
Eleanor Browne:
Thanks Rans. Jarrod I’ve got another question here for you around ACFR and QFR timeframes.
Q: So the due date for the ACFR is the 31st of the 10th and QFR Quarter 1 is the 4th of November. So there’s just one working day in between. Is there a grace time being discussed for Quarter 1 QFR reporting?
Jarrod Bowd:
Yeah. Good question. Not at this stage. But conscious I guess if providers do have good valid reasons for inability I guess to submit either/or the ACFR and the QFR please I guess get in touch with Forms Administration in the first instance. Just flag what the issue is and the reason for the delay. We’ll take that into consideration. And same with the Quality and Safety Commission. But is something I guess that we’ll look into and obviously it’s probably come up in the last couple of years I guess since the QFR. So once again providers I guess if it is something that I guess does agitate and it is quite difficult to encourage people to put in the chat, tick that box or provide comments on that. Because it is good feedback I guess when we’re putting together the timeframes. At the end of the day we want to get good, reliable data, high quality data. We’re not looking to push providers to at a particular point have to spend a significant amount of time in a one week period to get something completed. So to encourage providers if they do have some feedback to put it in the chat.
Eleanor Browne:
Excellent. Thanks Jarrod. I’ll just do a quick scan of questions that have popped in and I can see our moderators have gone through and answered questions where they can. I think we’ve probably got time for one last question and then we’ll wrap up. This is a question for Aden.
Q: Through a reporting assessment for one of our services the Department has found issues with our reporting of labour hours and costs. Our systems are based around pay cycles which don’t line up with financial quarters. How would you like us to report this information?
Aden Pulford:
Yeah. Absolutely. You’re not the only ones with that issue. So yes the expectation is reporting is prepared with reference to the period the report relates to and that the information provided is materially correct. And so we’d ask that providers at least try to report the actual dates for the period and when it’s not possible exercising judgment around apportioning those first and last pay cycles or otherwise forming a judgment to provide a materially correct report. That’s what we’d ask. And then through a reporting assessment if we identify issues we’ll still seek correction, but ultimately in the first instance we’d like an adjustment to actually use the correct dates and otherwise just materially correct report.
Eleanor Browne:
Great.
Jarrod Bowd:
Just on that one El just to jump in, we do see I guess with providers there’s 26 fortnights in a financial year so I guess you kind of go from seven fortnights to six fortnights, seven to six across the four quarters. As Aden said I guess a number of providers do receive follow up check ins from I guess Forms Administration on the quality of their data where their data bounces around from quarter to quarter. As Aden said I guess where providers can to if they can try to apportion correctly. That is one extra little area where further validation and follow ups would be prevented.
Eleanor Browne:
Great. Thanks Jarrod. Thanks all. Look we’ve got one minute left and I’d like to thank everyone for your time and your engagement today in our financial reporting webinar. We’ve had really great questions and engagement from the audience so we really appreciate you coming along. Our next webinar in the series will be early next year. And as we mentioned today we’re very happy to hear your feedback on this webinar and also our financial reporting collection and publications. So please do get in touch.
If you could please complete a short survey to help us improve our webinars. You can scan the QR code or follow the link we’ve posted in the Q&A. And the survey will take about one minute to answer three short questions. Thanks again for joining us today and if you do have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Department on ACFRQFRqueries@health.gov.au. And we look forward to presenting to you again in the coming months. Thank you.
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