Digital Transformation Tech Talk – 30 September 2025 – Webinar video

[Opening visual of slide with text saying ‘Tech Talk’, ‘Digital Transformation for the Aged Care sector – Webinar Series’, ‘Digital Services within Corporate Operations Group’, ‘Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’, ‘www.health.gov.au’, ‘Meeting #27’, ‘30 September 2025’]

[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]

Janine Bennett:

Hello everyone and welcome to today’s Tech Talk. Thanks for joining us for the latest digital transformation developments for the aged care sector. I’m Janine Bennett and the Assistant Secretary and Engagement Lead for the Department’s Digital Transformation Program and I’ll be your moderator for today’s webinar.

Before we get started I’d like to say a quick thank you to Emily Simlat who stepped in and hosted our last Tech Talk on my behalf earlier this month. Today I’m really pleased to be back with you all. And thank you for joining us once again.

I’m coming to you from Canberra today on the lands of the Ngunnawal and the Ngambri people. I’d like to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of this land and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging. I’d also like to extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people joining us today. It’s great to have you with us.

A few quick housekeeping notes for everyone. If you have any connection issues during the session as usual you’ll find the dial in details on your screen right now. They’re also in your meeting invite for your reference. As always today’s webinar is being recorded. We’ll upload the video to our website so you can revisit it or share it with anyone who wasn’t able to join us today. We also want to make sure that you can easily access all the links from today’s webinar. So those links have already been posted in the chat which you can copy. They’ll also be displayed as QR codes on screen during the session if you’d like to access them on your device during the relevant presentation. And then you’ll also get the links in the post-event email. So hopefully that gives you lots of ways to easily access those resources.

As always today we’ve set aside the last 30 minutes of this session for questions and answers. We’ve already opened the Q&A function so feel free to enter your questions as we go. Use that Q&A tab on the top of your screen and remember to vote up any other questions that you see that you’re interested in having answered. You can do that straight from the Q&A tab. Unfortunately or fortunately we almost always get more questions than we have time to answer. We know that this is a really crucial time for the sector as we approach the 1st of November and that you need those answers as quickly as possible. So to get through as many questions today as we can I’ll be reading all of those questions to the panel on your behalf. Next year we’re hoping we can return back to our usual method where we bring you to stage and have a bit more of a conversation. But for now we do really want to prioritise the throughput so we can answer as many questions as we can in the room.

If you don’t get a response to your questions today in session we’ll work to get those answers for you. So for highly specific or detailed questions relating to your individual circumstances we ask that you include your name in the question so that our team can get in contact with you and work with you to get the right answer. For more general questions we send those directly through to the relevant business areas and subject matter experts. They then use that input to update their existing resources, things like the Support at Home Program Manual, or to add to new resources like FAQs. Where we can we like to ensure that the really popular questions get answered at our future events. We’ve done this a couple of times including the last two Tech Talks. We’re also using those questions to inform agenda items and future speakers at our future Tech Talks as well.

A quick disclaimer. Keep in mind that our focus here at Tech Talk is on our technology and digital delivery work. We’ll do our best to answer any and all questions but generally our focus will be on those areas. Before we get into the agenda I’d also like to welcome any media representatives we have joining us today. Great to have you with us. We appreciate your continued interest in the important transformation work happening here in aged care. If you have any media related questions though we do ask that you direct those to our media and events team at news@health.gov.au. Those folks are best placed to help you with your media questions.

Okay. And now to the agenda. So first up today we have Fay Flevaras who will be taking us through our digital transformation update. Then Erika Barnett will provide an update on Support at Home. After Erika we’re welcoming Luke Stines from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission and then Shehara Perrara who is also here with us today providing an update on GPMS. And then as already mentioned we’ll finish up the session with our usual Q&A.

So as usual a packed agenda. I’ll not take up any more time and hand you over to Fay Flevaras. Fay is the Chief Digital Information Officer for the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and she’s responsible for driving the Department’s digital transformation agenda in aged care and beyond. Fay over to you.

Fay Flevaras:

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Digital Transformation Update’, ‘Fay Flevaras’, ‘Chief Digital Information Officer’, ‘Digital Services within Corporate Operations Group’, ‘Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’]

Thank you Janine. And nice to see you’re back. Emily did a great job filling in for you last webinar so if you ever need to take another break I think she’s definitely got the right things for the moderation position.

So it’s only been four weeks since our last webinar but we brought the date forward because we knew we would have some important information to share with you and we wanted to do that as soon as possible. And since the last time we’ve met the new Aged Care Act we’ve been waiting for, the new legislation to be passed by Parliament before we could give out some more specific details around the rules to you, I’m pleased to announce that the Aged Care and Other Legislative Amendment Bill 2025 has now been passed, meaning we can now be more comprehensive with the information we pass on. And so that’s great news for everyone. You will hear many references to that all throughout today’s webinar but before we do that we have some updates on the digital transformation roadmap and some updated resources so let me get into that really quickly.

First up the roadmap. As usual it’s caveated with the usual disclaimer. It’s important to note that the timeline on the roadmap is there to support the aged care reform agenda but it should not be considered an official commitment from Government. That happens elsewhere through processes outside of these Tech Talks. As you probably heard at these sessions previously we make a point of sharing this roadmap early and often so when changes occur, and they have, our intent is to call it out here. 

Last session we brought you the planned GPMS deliverables for February as part of our staged implementation. Today I’m pleased to add the addition of the My Aged Care deliverables for February. These new deliverables include improved residential aged care data transmission between the Department’s systems and Services Australia. We automate the generation of the CHSP notice of decision letters. We’re finalising elements of the Support at Home transition and we’re enhancing the Integrated Assessment Tool process for urgent services.

We’ve also added some updates from Services Australia as you can see. Those are the ones in the pink down the bottom of the roadmap. These highlight when providers can start invoicing and claiming under the new Support at Home arrangement and the ongoing monitoring and stabilisation work that will happen post go live. We want to be open and transparent about our path beyond the 1st of November and provide you with early visibility of what’s ahead in our journey. But we have a lot to get through today and since this is our last session with you ahead of the 1st of November we will bring you a more in-depth overview of what’s happening in 2026 later in the year.

Okay. So let’s get on with some of the new resources. So that you know the new Aged Care Act roadmap was released yesterday. So we’re happy to get this to you very quickly today. The roadmap outlines key dates and milestones for the aged care providers to be aware of as we approach the implementation of the 1st of November. It includes system outage dates and the anticipated release dates of additional guidance and support materials. So that’s a new one. Get in there and have a look at that one.

The new Aged Care Rules for 2025 are now available online. I’m sure everyone is aware that these Rules establish the operational detail needed to implement the Aged Care Act of 2024. The Rules clarify much of the detail many of you have been seeking and will be a resource you may need to consult over the coming weeks. So have a read and then of course we’re always here to support any questions. 

There’s a new AN-ACC – I call it AN-ACC – the Australian National Aged Care Classification – funding guide has been updated. This guide provides information for approved residential providers on the AN-ACC funding model and it sets out how to receive AN-ACC subsidies including relevant compliance requirements that may apply. And there’s also the specialised status guide for residential aged care providers as well. It’s also been updated.

If we move on we’ve got care minutes and 24/7 registered nursing responsibilities. For these you can see the care minutes responsibility guide has been recently added information on how many care minutes associated with each AN-ACC class used to calculate the service level care minute targets applying from the 1st of October. So that one’s hot off the press. And the 24/7 registered nursing responsibility document only had a minor change to remove information around split services. So have a look at those.

The Commonwealth Home Support Program has two new resources to help CHSP providers understand their compliance requirements under the new Act starting from the 1st. These include a letter to providers, a fact sheet for providers and then another fact sheet for clients. 

All right. Still a couple more to go but working our way through it. There’s a Data Exchange Toolkit for Stage 1 and the Data Exchange Dictionary have also been updated for you for Support at Home. So get your hands on those to help start looking at some of the detail. There’s also from Support at Home a range of new updated support resources have been published including Version 4 of the Support at Home Program Manual Transition Guide to providers delivering services for older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. There’s a summary of indicative Support at Home prices and there’s also a fact sheet on that one as well.

And then last but not least for our resources the latest schedule of subsidies and supplements is now available. And it includes the daily rates of subsidies around those four categories that you can see there. So watch this space as we continue to send more information.

Also we’ve got a commencement on some pilot sites for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Assessment Organisations. So the Department has entered into contract with three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Assessment Organisations. This marks the commencement of Phase 1 of the rollout, a pilot of the approach to inform the future implementation on how we do these together. This phase will pilot the IT systems, the onboarding processes, assessment processes and their outcomes, as well as training and support systems to ensure everything is working well before we expand more broadly. 

The pilot organisations are located in different areas as you can see, in different regions, distributed across five different states and territories, and it’s a setting with a mix of metro, regional and remote and very remote locations are covered in the scope of the pilot. The organisations and the aged care planning regions – you can see those on the screen. I won’t go through them – these organisations are currently onboarding and they will be listed on the single assessment system list of assessment organisations and the interactive map for consumers. So local readiness sessions will be offered to support the impacted regions and the rollout of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Assessment Pathway will be phased with learnings and insights gathered from each phase informing the next iteration. So we’ll work with the ACCOs – depending on how you want to pronounce the acronyms – and other experienced providers to expand in the future. So watch this space if you’re interested.

Now for something a little bit different. As some of you may recall we had planned for Professor John Hirdes from the University of Waterloo to join us for a recent Tech Talk. Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts we were unable to have Professor Hirdes join us live. So the next best thing. We connected virtually with the Professor to talk all things integrated care, AI, data standards and digital transformation. And the team have a little sneak peek to show you today and then you can watch the full version of the conversation. We’ll show you the QR code for that. So team can I just get you to do a quick play on that?

[START VIDEO PLAYBACK]

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’, ‘In conversation with Professor John Hirdes’, ‘Integrated care: Perspectives on AI, data standards and digital transformation’, with an image of John Hirdes]

Janine Bennett:

Today I’m very pleased to be speaking with Professor John Hirdes, a leading voice in the global conversation on ageing, health systems and the transformative role played by data in care delivery.

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Digital transformation’]

What sorts of opportunities should we be thinking about as we’re on this digital transformation journey?

Professor John Hirdes:

For me the biggest opportunity is around quality of care and resident experience. So I like to frame any decision making system in terms of this is for healthcare improvement, the HI quintupling framework of can I improve outcomes of care, can I improve the experience of care, the work life in there, can I improve equity and can I improve cost effectiveness?

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Integrated care in Canada’]

Janine Bennett:

Can you give us a bit of an overview of Canada’s efforts to improve integrated care?

Professor John Hirdes:

Yeah. So when we started all this we really had different silos of the healthcare system. So most sectors of the healthcare system had little or no data and there were no data standards there. So what having data standards introduced across different sectors is allowing us to do is to have more comparable information about people across settings so we can ask better questions about who gets care in what settings and we can share information between home care and nursing homes so that as people go from home care to a nursing home setting their information can follow them and you can have that longitudinal view.

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Find out more at:’, ‘www.health.gov.au/our-work/digital-transformation-for-the-aged-care-sector’, ‘Video produced by Digital Business Sector Engagement Branch (DBSE)’]

[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]

Fay Flevaras:

Okay. So just moving on to the next slide. It was a great conversation that the team had and one not to be missed. This is the QR code where you can find the full version of the video on our website. And we will include the QR code in the post-event email.

Excellent. So moving on to our first speaker of the day. I would like to hand over to Erika Barnett for our much anticipated Support at Home update. Erika is our new Acting Assistant Secretary for the Assessment and Home Care Transition Branch. Over to you Erika.

Erika Barnett:

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Support at Home’, ‘Erika Barnett’, ‘A/g Assistant Secretary’, ‘Assessment and Home Care Transition Branch’]

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’, ‘Support at Home’, ‘Support at Home Update’, ‘Erika Barnett’, ‘A/g Assistant Secretary, Assessment and Home Care Transition Branch’]

Thanks Fay and thanks for having me along today everyone. So I’ll just hop into our first slide there which is just a timeline view of how we are going with the next steps for getting our providers and clients moved over to Support at Home. I know you’ve seen this one before so just keeping it current and updating this for you. We are seeing some activities happening soon. So we’ve got the letters that will be going out to participants which I’ll talk about a bit later and a few activities that providers will be doing during this month, so updating their pricing schedules on the Service and Support Portal, and once those contribution rates are available to providers continuing to work through Service Agreements with participants.

Also a little bit in there on the timing of claiming and closing out your Home Care Package claims but I’m going to go through that in the next couple of slides. Thanks. So we’ll move on.

So there’s been quite a lot of interest in this. As Fay mentioned earlier the Legislative Amendments Bill has passed which allows us to go ahead with our work with Services Australia to take a one off point in time calculation of people’s indicative contribution rate for Support at Home. So that will be going up on the portal on Services Australia’s side from the 1st of October. That is proceeding. And then we will be writing out to those Home Care Package recipients with information on their indicative contribution rates. There’s been some questions about what does indicative mean in other forums. So it is an actual assessment of the person’s situation based on their real information we hold but it’s not a formal calculation until the program starts on 1 November. So those letters will go out from Services Australia with that formal notification from 1 November onwards. Thanks. We’ll go to the next slide.

So those letters that will be going out to participants, some of them are hitting the post today so we’ll be seeing them come out maybe by the end of this week or into the middle of the month. They include information on the commencement of Support at Home. We did have some letters go out a little earlier in the year. These are an update with the deferral, a bit of information on treatment of Home Care Package unspent funds, information on their financial contribution rates that may apply based on their circumstances, and we’re also including in there the physical Support at Home booklet. We have got a lot of feedback from older people and our advocacy networks that it’s good to have a physical copy of things nice and summarised that complements all of our website content and all the other outreach we’re doing through important programs like through our libraries and things like that. So like I said letters are going out now hitting the post so should start seeing those out soon. 

For any providers on the call Services Australia has also published some supporting information for you, some talking points, so if you hop onto their portal there’s a kit online for you there to check out some information you can use to discuss the content of the letters with your clients. Thanks.

So as everyone knows the Commonwealth unspent funds need to be worked out for our Home Care Package participants to allow them to transition effectively to Support at Home. The existing program, HCP will close on the 31st and our new program starts on the 1st. So as part of October claims Home Care providers need to declare the final amounts of provider held Commonwealth unspent funds and those are things that have been built up before September 2021 where some arrangements changed where you might still be managing them if you’ve chosen to go that pathway. So that reported amount will roll over into Support at Home from 1 November. Thanks.

So there’s a few dates on this slide for closing out your claims for different programs. So residential claims will be prior to 24th of October and then Home Care providers transitioning to Support at Home should be getting all of their claims in prior to 31 October and that’s just leading into our outage windows. And then providers will use November to finalise all their Home Care Package claims and report those final balances of unspent funds to allow us to do Support at Home claiming from 1 December. So I will just flag that there’s some additional guidance that’s in development at the moment for providers to help them with closing out their Home Care Package claims. We have got some feedback around some complexities with closing things out and waiting on information for certain clients. So keep an eye out for some updated guidance that will be coming out on that soon.

So a new piece of work that some of you may not be aware of, and we’re about to be publishing some public information on that soon, is the AT-HM data collection. So AT-HM is Assistive Technology and Home Modifications and it’s a major part of our Support at Home Program going forward and one of the short term pathways. So the scheme commences with Support at Home on 1 November and all of our transition participants will have a deemed approval to access the scheme without going through a new assessment. But they can use that approval to access services through their unspent funds only. 

So if a transitioned participant doesn’t have enough unspent funds or they have no unspent funds then providers are going to be able to request a funding tier for those clients directly with the Department until February 2026. So the ongoing pathway for that will be a standard support plan review with a needs assessor. But we recognise the need to process these quite quickly and take some pressure off our assessment workforce so we’re going to be opening up this process shortly, in the coming days, to allow providers to make those requests directly to the Department and have us process those in house.

And we have done some testing on the process with providers from our sector reference group and refined some of those processes as a result. And just being a temporary solution we’ll be leveraging the Department’s health data portal for those submissions and using the existing MAC Service and Support Portal as well. So like I said from February onwards we will revert back to support plan reviews but we wanted to give providers an opportunity to get those processed a little bit faster and ensure our assessors can be focused on their important work putting people through the assessment system and into care.

Already mentioned but it’s just been such an important thing I just did want to flag as well that having the Amendments Bill passed has meant we can proceed with quite a few things now. So also you would have seen in the announcements an additional 20,000 Home Care Packages will be released before the Act commences and then the further 63,000 by June next year, and the Rules being registered as well.

So also just continually pointing you back to the guidance that’s up on the website. Program Manual final version has been issued in the last couple of weeks and a few more supporting pieces of information there for you to check out. And that’s it for me Fay. Thanks for having us along. 

Fay Flevaras:

Thanks Erika. And I’m hoping you’ll stick around for later on in the session for some Q&A. It’s great to see how everything’s progressing.

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner’, ‘Luke Stines’, ‘Chief Digital and Information Officer’, ‘Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission’]

Okay. So in the Tech Talk we tried to bring in presenters to show you that all Departments involved in implementing the new Aged Care Act are collaborating to get everything ready for the 1st of November. And often when we come here we get lots of questions from you guys and they don’t always sit with us in the Department to answer. We recently had Services Australia join us and today we are very pleased to have Luke Stines from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. Luke is my counterpart at the Commission and I’d like to thank Luke for taking the time out in his very busy schedule I’m sure, because we’ve got lots to do. And so over to you. Please take it away.

Luke Stines:

Thanks Fay. Hi all. Thanks firstly for the opportunity to speak with you today. As Fay said my name’s Luke Stines. I’m the Chief Digital and Information Officer at the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. I’ve been in this role for about nine months now which has been an incredibly exciting time to join the Commission as I’m sure you can all imagine as we like you prepare for the new Aged Care Act. Before joining here I was with the Department of Health so already have a strong connection to this group and a real appreciation for the work you all do.

So noting this is the first time the Commission is presenting we’ve kept it at a really high level and we may well tell you what you already know. But certainly keen on staying involved in these sessions.

As you know the Commission is Australia’s national regulator of aged care services. Our purpose is simple but vital and no doubt shared across all organisations. It’s to protect and enhance the safety, health, wellbeing and quality of life of older Australians. We do this by regulating aged care providers, resolving complaints and promoting continuous improvement in the sector.

So you don’t need me to tell you that the new Aged Care Act is the most significant reform in aged care regulation in decades. We’ve been on the same journey as providers and older Australians and like you preparing for it has required change on many levels. But digital transformation has been one of the most critical enablers for the Commission and without it we simply couldn’t deliver on the Act’s promise.

So today I’d like to give you an overview of the digital connections between the Commission and providers and older people and I’ll share a couple of examples of how these have been brought to life.

So why was digital transformation essential at the Commission? The new Act places higher expectations on all of us including pragmatic risk based regulation, greater transparency and improved service delivery. To meet these expectations we needed a fundamental uplift in our digital environment.

That transformation has ensured we can deliver efficient compliance and reporting, reducing red tape for providers, offer better support for providers and older people through modern streamlined systems and build security and trust in the way we handle sensitive information. This work has been essential in enabling the Commission to uphold its responsibilities under the Act.

So how will providers and older people engage with us? Under the new framework providers and older people will engage with us in clearer, more consistent and more accessible ways. Providers will benefit from streamlined communications through our digital channels and older people and families will experience stronger protections.

Our digital channels now support providers, older people and the general public in clearer and more consistent ways. For providers they’ll use SmartForms, webinars, newsletters, forums and secure evidence systems. When I say forums, things like this, the Tech Talks are a really great opportunity for us to present. Care recipients have call centre support, explainer videos and public webinars. And the public has access to complaints channels, the provider register, performance reporting and educational resources. So together these make engagement simpler, easier and more transparent for everyone.

One of our latest innovations are our new SmartForms. These SmartForms are designed to guide providers step by step, helping them submit accurate information. They help providers submit information to the Commission for purposes such as registration, re-registration or corrections of data. They cut down on duplication, reduce errors and allow us to process information much more efficiently. SmartForms not only make life easier for providers but they also improve the quality of the data we receive which in turn improves the quality of regulation, the Commission’s core purpose.

So how will the provider engage with the SmartForms? I’ll talk you through the process really quickly. Currently there’s nine SmartForm topics. Some forms can be submitted only once. Others can be used multiple times as required such as adding responsible persons or residential care homes. Most of these forms will be available online via the Commission’s website with the exception of the application for renewal of registration which is invite only from the Commission’s team.

Providers will access the Commission’s website and they’ll answer a series of questions to identify and retrieve the required form. Once that form has been completed they’ll be submitted to the Commission via the website.

So how will we achieve the requirements for the new Aged Care Act? Well delivering these reforms has required a major technology uplift. We’ve integrated our core systems, so rather than operating in silos they now talk to each other. We’ve streamlined case management and provider interactions making processes faster and more predictable. And we’ve invested in future ready capabilities all with the person at the core of everything we do. And obviously the Commission won’t be downing tools on 1 November. There’s a long list of improvements to continue pursuing.

So let me share a quick snapshot of where we are today in our transformation ready for 1st of November. All major systems are now built and end to end testing is underway and well progressed. Interagency testing of all relevant systems has commenced to ensure that they work together seamlessly.

We’ve already completed successful dry runs of data priming, integration and case management in collaboration with the Department. 

So what are our next steps? We will complete the remaining build of the provider register, monitor and resolve issues from dry runs and continue interagency collaboration during the testing phase. Our final milestone before go live will be the code freeze which is planned for the 18th of October which will lock in all systems ahead of the Act’s commencement. And these steps are really all about ensuring complete readiness when we transition on the 1st of November.

So looking ahead, while November is a major milestone it’s not the end of the journey as I mentioned. We’ll continue to align our core systems and processes with the Aged Care Act and embed digital maturity across the Commission. We are committed to delivering safe, responsible and effective digital services. We’re also committed to working with the Department to ensure our systems are as seamless and integrated as possible for the sector. And our vision is clear. A modern digital environment that strengthens aged care for all Australians.

Just quickly before wrapping up I know associated providers has been a hot topic as we approach 1st of November. Hot off the press in the coming days the Commission will be publishing a regulatory bulletin regarding associated providers. We’ve developed that guidance following many questions from you all. Some of the items that it will cover. What is an associated provider, what’s the definition, why was the concept of an associated provider introduced, who’s considered an associated provider, what requirements apply to associated providers and what requirements apply to registered providers in respect of associated providers? In addition to that the Commission is also exploring and investigating bulk upload functionality for associated providers.

That’s it from me Fay. I’ll throw back to you.

Fay Flevaras:

Thank you Luke. And yes associated providers has been one of those hot topics that we’ve had some feedback so really great that you guys at the Commission are looking into some of those questions that we’ve already received and we’ll be all waiting for that new bulletin to come out.

I’d now like to welcome Shehara to talk about the latest developments in our GPMS space. Thanks for coming along Shehara. Do we have her with us? There she is. Over to you.

Shehara Perrara:

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Government Provider Management System’, ‘Shehara Perrara’, ‘Assistant Director, Reform Implementation Division’, ‘Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’]

Thanks Fay. My name’s Shehara Perrara and I’m the Director of the GPMS Policy Section and I’ll be providing a bit of a timeline in preparation for the new Act including GPMS system outage information, updates to the GPMS checklist guide and conceptual data model, new and updated GPMS resources. I’ll just be outlining them and some key resources as well including our GPMS website enhancements and a little bit of information about where to find that support. If we can move on to the next slide.

So as I said this is the timeline for preparing for the new Act. The GPMS release outage is planned for 11:15pm on Friday the 17th until midnight on Sunday the 19th of October where the system will be unavailable. What this means is that during this period providers will not be able to view or modify any information within the system. And so we’re encouraging everyone to make any required changes before the outage period commences. And that includes advising of any organisation changes, key personnel changes, by completing and submitting notifications through your Manage Your Organisation tile in GPMS. 

Any changes to user access submitted prior to 11:15pm on Friday the 17th will be processed and it will be automatically available under the Registered Provider Portal on the 3rd of November. If a user is added after the 17th of October and requires access to future reporting periods the organisation must add the user to the Registered Provider Portal from the 3rd of November. And any notifications or determination applications that are submitted prior to 11:15 on Friday the 17th of October will be processed and those changes will be visible in GPMS from the 3rd of November. And then you can also see from the timeline just as Luke mentioned the Commission will accept any approved provider notification and determinations submitted before 5:00pm Friday the 17th of November. 

You can also in September and October upload PDFs for a revised pricing schedule for home care and Support at Home will be offered in the My Aged Care Service and Support Portal. You can complete your quality indicator data submissions for Q1 for 25-26 by the 21st of October. That’s the requirement and we’re recommending that you complete this by the 17th of October if possible. And then for the Quarterly Financial Reporting we’re recommending that you complete this by the 31st of October.

So we can share this information with you so that you can see this at your leisure and also incorporate that into how you manage your organisation’s operations. If we can share the next slide.

So this is the GPMS Checklist Guide and Conceptual Data Model. These are not new. We’ve shared these with sector partners and Tech Talk and other forums previously. We’ve updated these guides and now they’re available online. What’s changed is that we’ve covered the digital readiness activity – in the Checklist we’ve covered the digital readiness activities for providers to support the implementation of the Act and it has been codesigned with sector groups and providers. It will continue to update this as well if there are any other changes that need to be made. The Guide to Digital Changes for Providers has been updated with new information about Support at Home, GPMS Conceptual Data Model, GPMS Portals, updates to API and new interactive forms. The GPMS Conceptual Data Model and Business Glossary has been updated to respond to providers seeking more detailed technical information and the Data Model describes the key entities and their relationships underpinning the changes under the new Aged Care Act. If we can go to the next slide.

So here you will see new and updated GPMS resources. We’ve got the GPMS User Guides, GPMS videos, Quick Reference Guides and fact sheets and glossaries. The User Guide has Manage Your Organisation tile, new User Guide Registered Provider Portal, User Guide on 24/7 reporting and updated procedures about how to login to the aged care system. The videos basically reflect the Guides and just provide another way to digest that information and how to use the system. Quick Reference Guide again is just a shorter version of the User Guides and the fact sheets and the glossary provide additional support in using the system. Can we go to the next slide?

These are some key resources and this again is a more detailed view of the slide before which again provides information about the User Guides, the Registered Provider Portal, fact sheets, videos and QRGs. I won’t go over this again because it was outlined in the earlier slide. If we can go to the next one.

We’ve also enhanced the GPMS website and we’re going to be updating that this week. And what we’ve done is made it a bit more user friendly. We’ve updated approved provider and registered provider information and provider reporting and resources. We’re going to improve the search and navigation functionality on the resources page. We’re going to make it easier to navigate to key content incorporating into other main web pages. And as I said before we’ve got the new videos. We’ve got clearer navigation to other Health websites. We’re also going to be putting up updated terms of use and privacy policy information for 1 November under the new Act. The GPMS website’s enhancements from 3 November will also reflect the Portal, the GPMS Approved Provider Portal and the GPMS Registered Provider Portal for ease of reference. Next slide.

This is a slide on where to go for support. This is not new for anyone. It’s just to assist you guys in navigating through. If you can go to the next slide this one is new. We got a bit of feedback from the sector about if we could provide a little bit more support in relation to questions that could be possibly asked. So if you look at this, the way we’ve presented this – and this will also be up on the website – the way we’ve presented this is if your question is ‘I need support with technical and general information as a registered provider, assessor or hospital staff in using aged care service and support’ then you go to this. If your question is about change in circumstances, reporting any circumstantial changes, then you can see where to go for support. So we’ve basically provided you where to go for support based on what your question might be. 

And we’ve got a second slide also outlined that way if you go to the next slide. There you go. So it’s exactly the same thing. And then the last slide – sorry. Keep going. The next slide after this one. Yep. So this one is key contacts. Sorry. It’s tiny here in this slide but it won’t be on the website where we will have the where to go for support placemat which is what this is. And again this is at a higher level. So the first two slides that we just showed you is if you were asking a specific question, where could you go. This one is done in such a way where if you’re saying you want My Aged Care Service and Support and Assessor Helpline that’s that number. If you want Aged Care Regulatory Model that’s that email address and that kind of thing. So that’s how those supports have been presented.

And that’s it. Thank you.

Fay Flevaras:

Thank you very much Shehara. Have I said your name correctly? Shehara.

Shehara Perrara:

Yes. You did. Shehara. No. That’s okay.

Fay Flevaras:

Okay. So you’re joining us for Q&A. Janine I’m handing back to you and I think we’re bringing up Erika and Luke.

Janine Bennett:

We are. Thank you Fay. Team I’ll get you to take the slides down so we can see our panellists. Thank you Erika, Luke, Shehara and Fay. Really appreciate you staying with us for the panel. I think we’ve just got Erika to bring up. Excellent.

A couple of quick comments while our panel get settled in. Just a reminder again if you have media related questions please direct those to our media and events team at news@health.gov.au. A thank you to our SMEs and standbys who are waiting in the background ready to answer questions. It’s really good to have expertise both on and off screen with us today. And as always we’ll get through as many questions as we can in the time remaining. It looks like we’ve got a good amount of time.

Okay. So not surprisingly Support at Home is a popular topic for questions today. So we will start with a few questions for you Erika and then we’ll try and build in a little bit of a break for you as we can. Our first question is from Rahil. Thanks for the question Rahil.

Q:        Can you clarify the requirements of aged care respite delivered by an in home support aged care provider specifically regarding the registration category and how such services will be audited? Many thanks.

Cheers Erika. Over to you.

Erika Barnett:

Thanks Janine. So just got some support here from our Reg Model team. So the service type home support or community general respite can be delivered under Support at Home. So providers need to be registered into category four. So that’s personal and care support in the home or community to deliver that service type. So where providers are seeking registration or renewal in category four they will be audited against the applicable Quality Standards as part of the registration or renewal process.

Janine Bennett:

Great. Hope that answers the question Rahil. Our next question is from Megan and this question is:

Q:        The timeline provided states that Services Australia will have the contribution rates available on ACPP in September to October. Can you confirm if this has occurred or the date that it will occur?

Erika Barnett:

Yep. Absolutely. So as mentioned in my presentation earlier Services Australia have proceeded with that work with the amendments going through, so they’re going to be available in that portal from the 1st of October. There’s also the Providing Home Care page on the Services Australia website that has a new e-kit where you can go ahead and download a bit of guidance on how to understand the indicative rates and how to discuss them with your clients if you need to as well. So that kit’s available now for download. 

Janine Bennett:

Great. Next question is from Catherine.

Q:        Where are we meant to upload Support at Home pricing on My Aged Care? It still only has Home Care pricing available to edit.

And this one’s again for you Erika. Thanks.

Erika Barnett:

Yeah. All good. So this one’s a two step process for providers. So where you can see the Home Care pricing facility available on MAC at the moment, that’s where we’re asking providers to upload a PDF of their pricing before cut over. So it is just using the existing functionality with the Home Care pricing schedule upload. So that’s the right place. And that’s just a temporary measure until we open up the portals for registering your full prices and your services which providers are being encouraged to do between the 3rd and the 7th of November once the systems come back up. So there’s a little bit more information on the different steps in the Provider Transition Guide that’s been up on the web for a while now.

Janine Bennett:

Thanks very much Erika. And last of the rapid fire questions.

Q:        How many libraries are being used to disseminate the information and are these in the country areas and do the libraries know that this is occurring?

And this is a question from Rosalie.

Erika Barnett:

Yep. So we don’t run the library program ourselves but we partner with our communications area to do that. So this is actually a program that’s been going for a while that we’ve had a lot of success with. So I’ll ask the team to share a link either in this call or in the questions that come out after. There’s some information on the program on My Aged Care. There’s about 30 libraries that are aware and just looking through the list myself I can see some regional and remote areas there as well. So if we get that link over to you you can check out the full list on the website.

Janine Bennett:

Great. That is a really great initiative and I heard lots of good feedback from the community about that one as well. Okay. We’ll give you a break. Over to Fay. We’ve got a question from Mandy Fay.

Q:        Is the Department addressing concerns around timelines for ENRMC software vendors supporting providers to transition by 28 February ’26 with the large number of clients they have to transition in this timeframe?

Fay Flevaras:

So the ENRMC has been a change that’s been going on for some time now. I think if there are any particular concerns best to document them and send us an email. Because at this stage we haven’t been informed that you need anything extra. So I’m not sure if that’s the answer you want to hear but if you guys could let us know where you have concerns or where might be the friction points, we can look into it with the Department and the different policy areas to see how they might support.

Janine Bennett:

Great. Thanks Fay. And feel free to pop more information into the Q&A if you need a bit more support there. Okay. Back to Erika.

Q:        When might the program specific guidance for the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing Commonwealth Home Support Program in the Data Exchange be updated?

And this question is from Jane. 

Erika Barnett:

Janine on this one I think I might have to take this one on notice. I’m not fully across the Data Exchange sorry. But we can certainly make contact with the right people to update that one.

Janine Bennett:

All right. Sounds great. Thanks Erika. And Jane stay tuned. We’ll come back to you. The next question is:

Q:        Indicative client contribution percentages in letters from 1 October, will these be available to providers, eg via My Aged Care?

And this question is from Camisha. 

Erika Barnett:

Yep. So covered this one a little bit already. So it’s not in MAC. It’s on the Services Australia side. So that will be available in the Aged Care Provider Portal from 1 October as well.

Janine Bennett:

Great. Another one for you Erika. You’re getting a workout today. 

Q:        For the AT-HM report survey are we lodging an individual response for all 600 of our clients, and what type of information do you need for us to complete this data report?

And this is a question from Guy.

Erika Barnett:

Thanks for your question Guy. So we have really narrowed it down to the basic information we need. So we’re trying to keep it quite brief. So it’s information on your participants so we can identify them, the amount of funding that you require for the person for AT and HM. We’re asking if they use a guide dog. As some of you might be aware we have an ongoing pathway for AT-HM for people who use a guide dog. And just asking about whether the person has any degenerative conditions because that does change how long the AT-HM funding is active for. So it’s really quite short.

In terms of being able to submit them individually it will be a bulk submission through the Health Data Portal asking for that to just be summarised for all of your participants. You do need to provide evidence though that gets uploaded to the MAC Service and Support Portal. This is a requirement that we’ll be carrying through to support plan reviews where we’re asking for an increase or change to the AT and HM tier. So bulk submissions through the Health Data Portal but care partners needing to upload some supporting information to allow the Department’s assessors to complete this assessment.

I will say there is a full guidance document for providers that outlines the whole background to this temporary process, all the steps you need to take in both systems as well as a mailbox where you’ll be able to make enquiries for help and support with the process as well. So that will be going up shortly.

Janine Bennett:

Great. Thanks very much Erika. We had a question from Catherine about the AT-HM wraparounds. And just for Catherine’s visibility we are going to take that question on notice.

So moving on we’ll put a question to Luke. Luke nice to have you with us for the first time in a Tech Talk. The question is from Nicole and it is:

Q:        What is the processing timeframes on associate providers being approved in GPMS ensuring they are completed before 17th of October? 

Luke Stines:

Yeah. Thanks Nicole. So it’s prior to 1st of November and until then providers are able to change their third party organisations or TPOs through the Manage Your Organisation tile in the GPMS self-service portal. There’s actually no requirement for the Commission to approve these changes so as long as they’re made prior to the 17th of October 2025 those TPOs will be migrated across as associated providers as part of the transition to the new Aged Care Act.

Janine Bennett:

Great. Thanks Luke. Erika this question is from Perinne. The question is:

Q:        Erika mentioned that AT-HM for existing participants with no unspent funds will be able to request AT-HM funding from Commonwealth. Is this process any different from the new participants joining from 1st of November 2025? It also states it starts from October. Do we know the date? 

Erika Barnett:

Yep. So there’s probably two groups that we’re talking about in terms of new participants. So if a person had their Home Care Package approval before 1 November and they’re transitioning to Support at Home they will be able to use this temporary process if they get their package after 1 November. So if you go to the Support at Home Manual what I’d be talking about there is transition to participants. But people who are new to the whole program, just going through their aged care assessment, it will be just assessed as part of someone’s comprehensive assessment with a needs assessor. They might recommend a Support at Home classification and the short term pathways like AT-HM will be recommended through the assessment. And the date we are targeting as quickly as possible so ideally by the end of the week but if not it will be early next week.

Janine Bennett:

Okay. Thanks very much for that. Okay. Our next question we’ll put to Shehara. And this one’s around the SmartForms being used for QFRs and ACFR. And the question is from Charlene. The question is:

Q:        Will there be SmartForms for QFR and ACFR and other data?

Shehara Perrara:

So the submissions for the QFR and ACFR will continue to be managed the way they are, so the QFR data via the GPMS, and it won’t be via SmartForms.

Janine Bennett:

Okay. Great. Thank you for that. Next question is back to Erika.

Q:        Can we get access to what a provider claim will look like for Support at Home?

And this question’s from Nicole.

Erika Barnett:

Okay. Thanks for your question Nicole. So there’s a range of new resources that will be made available on the Services Australia website from 1 November. The current claiming guidance for home care will remain in place until the changeover. However in the meantime Services Australia have been working on providing some really comprehensive data for providers and vendors in the CSV e-kit and Services Australia have also published some updates and new documents in the e-kit over the past two weeks. 

So the e-kit now includes the Support at Home budget drawdown scenario examples document which reflects funding use of the quarterly budget, Commonwealth unspent funds and Home Care account funds, the new Support at Home payment statement download sample – the final versions are still under development for that one – updates to the Support at Home invoice CSV so it now includes columns that link to the names in the API definition and your CSV file. And for those developers that won’t be using APIs from November have a look at the e-kit to help with further preparations for the changes. So there’s going to be additional CSV documentation and sample files that have been added in there as well. 

So quite a lot of information. I guess I would just encourage people to also keep engaging with the fortnightly engagement forums we are running with Services Australia. Keep feeding through those questions and engage in that support that’s been offered from Services Australia to help you get ready.

Janine Bennett:

Great. Thanks Erika. Luke we have a question from – and I may pronounce this wrong and apologies in advance – Prateeba. And the question is:

Q:        When will we have the bulk upload functionality for the GPMS associated provider list update?

Luke Stines:

So bulk uploading is not currently available. We are looking at options to help providers manage large numbers of associated providers including potentially facilitating bulk uploads through specialised forms. So we will provide more information and guidance about this shortly.

Janine Bennett:

Great. Thanks Luke. And another one for you. This one from Cindy.

Q:        When will the forms be available? We are doing an acquisition of aged care provider and can’t find any forms. And will nothing be available until after 1st of November?

Luke Stines:

So the Commission’s already published a fair few forms including most forms relating to registration renewal and variation of registration. So they’re on our website to assist providers’ preparation for the new Act and they can be found on the website through the resource library.

Janine Bennett:

Great. Thank you. And then it looks like we have one more question for you Luke.

Q:        When can we expect the associated provider information?

And Amanda’s seeking a date if you have one.

Luke Stines:

Yeah. So we’re looking to publish that regulatory bulletin on associated providers before the end of the week and the Commission is also intending to publish frequently asked questions alongside that on our website before the week is out.

Janine Bennett:

Great. All right. Well I can’t believe I’m saying this but we’ve whipped through the questions. Every question that we’re able to answer today we have put to the panel. We have a number of questions that we’ve taken on notice that we will pick up and follow up on your behalf and then a number of questions that were duplicates of the ones we were already asked. So we’re hoping you’re able to refer back to the answers that you received from the panel when we asked the general question.

I think we can finish up early today. 

Fay Flevaras:

I’m just noting – sorry. And I was just reading the question again from Melissa around the ENRMC question. And I think that maybe that’s one that we should reach out separately. Melissa if you could please just contact us through the DT sector partner or DT engagement. Which email should they contact Janine?

Janine Bennett:

DTsectorpartners@health.gov.au will get you to the right people.

Fay Flevaras:

Yeah. If you can contact us. I think we need more information on that one to assist. I’ve noticed that there was a second part to that question and so maybe my answer didn’t actually meet Melissa’s needs. So hopefully Melissa you can reach out to us and we’ll have a further discussion. Thank you. 

Janine Bennett:

And while you’ve been saying that Fay we actually have had one more question come in for you so we might as well answer Rosalie’s question. So the question is:

Q:        Is there an awareness of the sheer volume of requirements on all providers? The volume of literature to read and try and absorb and implement is eye watering.

We sympathise with that.

Q:        Every provider is frantically trying to keep up with the information as well as doing business as usual. I sincerely hope there is consideration on all providers over the very least the next 12 months or until we get to a point of business as usual say around end of 2027.

Fay any advice for Rosalie there? 

Fay Flevaras:

I understand. I’m not sure where we’re at with the digital transformation impact assessment work Janine, whether we’ve made that available to everyone in the public yet. We understand that the new Aged Care Act is – we’re literally turning the Act on its head in a sense and first time in a very long time. So we’re actually introducing a whole new Act. We do understand that there is big impacts for everyone and we have staged the implementation as best we can so that you’ve got the 1st of November launch and then there will be subsequent drops towards the beginning of next year in the interest of supporting everyone through it. A lot of material has been created. We understand there’s a bit to absorb. 

Where did we get to with the digital transformation impact assessment work Janine? Have we launched that to the broader audience?

Janine Bennett:

We haven’t. No.

Fay Flevaras:

Okay. So watch this space. We might actually help. There is a tool that we’ll bring out very shortly that allows people to have a look at the impacts, drive a priority on what’s most important to them in their organisation. Luke over to you.

Luke Stines:

Yeah. Sorry. I just wanted to add our two cents from the Commission because this is pretty topical feedback that we’re receiving from all angles. So from the Commission’s perspective we recognise that with the scale of all this change, immediate strict compliance with new or changed legislative obligations may be challenging for some providers. So the Commission’s regulatory approach is and will remain risk led, meaning we’ll pay the greatest attention to and expend greatest effort on those issues that present risks to high quality and safe care. So our expectation of registered providers, responsible persons, aged care workers and digital platforms is that they will comply with their legislative obligations, address areas of non-compliance proactively and take a continuous improvement approach. So our approach recognises when providers demonstrate their commitment to meeting and exceeding standards and are striving to deliver high quality care.

Fay Flevaras:

Thanks Luke. So I think there’s definitely an understanding with all of us that as long as providers are working to meet their obligations and making sure that there is no unsafe practices that yes we will work with you guys to make sure you all get across the line.

There is one question that popped up. Can you see that one Janine? I’m not sure. It says:

Q:        Can we have this one answered please? I understand that the travel service in Support at Home is charged based on a price range.

Did we raise this one?

Q:        However for other services such as social support the amount of driving required by the social worker can vary from day to day depending on whether they accompany the client to the hospital or community groups or in shopping. In this case can additional payment per kilometre be added to the service cost to cover the support worker’s travel?

Is that one we can answer?

Erika Barnett:

It’s not. So it’s one that I’ve asked to take on notice just so we can get you the right response. So what I’ve been told I guess is this is something that a lot of providers are working through and sometimes the individual pricing decisions on how an organisation sets things up are really sort of their choice. I will say there is some discussion happening at the moment on the Support at Home Community of Practice from different providers collaborating on this with each other to get guidance and share information on this. So this would be one where I’d point people to the Community of Practice for now however we’ll take the specific question on notice to come back and we might update the price in frequently asked questions. 

There are a couple of other ones that have come through if you want me to just quickly jump in.

Fay Flevaras:

Yeah. For sure. Thank you.

Erika Barnett:

Yep. So someone’s asked if the pricing needs to be updated between the 3rd and the 7th. Can we do the PDF earlier and make changes, that kind of thing? So I just want to explain the PDF allows us to have that pricing information for a temporary view of our Find a Provider tool on the My Aged Care system before people go in and do the work to update all of their services and detailed pricing information which will take a couple of days for people to do afterwards. So I would encourage people to engage with both steps of the process, the PDF and going through and updating all the individual ones so you can get the best view of your organisation on the different versions of the Find a Provider tool that will be visible during those early weeks of November. And then making changes. Yes. You can make changes and upload a different version at a later time and I’ll see if that’s clear in the guidance material that’s up.

And then another one that’s super simple so I’ll just quickly smash it out so we don’t have another question on notice. 

Q:        So current Home Care Package care recipients who had their approval date post 12 September, when will we know their Support at Home classification? 

So this is where I think it can get a little bit tricky to understand people who are transitioning and people who are grandfathered. And there’s some really good information in the Program Manual on this. So if a person has a Home Care Package approval before we cut over on 1 November those people have a deemed approval for their transitional Support at Home classification. So they won’t go into a Support at Home 1 to 8. They get that transitional classification. And so anyone who’s assessed after 1 November will be put into a Support at Home 1 to 8. So even though their contribution situation might be a bit different because they were approved after the 12th of September 2024 they get that transitional classification. And I’d point people to the Manual for a bit more clarity on the differences there. 

Janine Bennett:

Great. And Erika while we have you can you just tell us a little bit about that Community of Practice?

Erika Barnett:

Yeah. Absolutely. So the Home Care Packages Community of Practice has been running for some time but we’ve recently spent some time revamping that and there’s some good conversations going on for providers to talk to each other. Where we’re getting questions as well through different forums like this one and we don’t have a good spot to put it, so through say the Manual or frequently asked questions and that kind of thing, we are posting responses to questions there for everyone to see. So if an individual provider picks up something interesting we’re making sure we share that out for people too. So happy to share a link out to people when we come back on things but absolutely hop on that Community of Practice and keep the conversation going and supporting each other.

Janine Bennett:

Excellent. Thank you so much to our panel. If we haven’t got to your question today please note we have taken it on notice and we will come back to you. Luke, Erika – you got a workout today Erika. We really appreciate that – Shehara, thank you for joining us today at Tech Talk. And thank you to all of our participants who actively ask so many great questions. We were able to get through a lot today so that’s amazing.

As always we appreciate your continued interest and active participation. We also want to hear your thoughts in our post-event survey. So for those of you that are here today please take the time to register for that survey and tell us what you think. Our next webinar will be in late November and you will get advice about how you can register for that as well. Use the QR code on screen if you’d like to register right now or the links are also available in the chat.

I will now hand over to Fay to take us out. Any last words Fay?

Fay Flevaras:

Thanks Janine. And thank you everyone for coming along. As Janine has said our next Tech Talk will be Thursday the 20th of November so by then we’ll have all gone live with the new Act. We’ll be wrapping up this very busy year and looking forward to 2026 with you at our last Tech Talk for the year. And we hope you got some valuable takeaways from today. Thank you all very much and see you all soon. Thanks.

[Closing visual of slide with text saying ‘Thank you!’, image of QR code, ‘Register for our next Tech Talk’, ‘Give us your feedback’, image of QR code, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’, ‘DTDDEngagementOffice@health.gov.au’]

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