LANCASHIRE, Claire 0:11
Hi folks, as always, we'll give people a bit of time to join.
LANCASHIRE, Claire 1:29
We might make a start. Hello and a warm welcome to everyone joining us here today. I'm Claire LANCASHIRE and I lead on Engagement for Support at Home. Please note this session will be recorded and made available on the Department's website. If you ask a question during the session, your name and question will be included in the recording and publicly visible.
Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we're virtually meeting today. I'm based on the lands of the Wurundjeri people. I acknowledge and pay respect to their contribution they make to the life of this city and this region. I also extend my respects to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who are here with us today.
Before we get into some housekeeping, congratulations to everyone who've been along this journey with us and working through today is a really momentous occasion in the program's history. Really important that we've been able to work on these changes with the sector and we've heard really strongly from older people and their supporters throughout this process of the importance of this change. So it really is a big milestone and a big thank you to all the work that you've done to support this and to support the older people that you're working with. In terms of housekeeping, again, today's focus remains focused on the implementation of personal care contributions.
It's not really a forum to discuss other Support at Home matters. It's our 10th of these fortnightly sessions. So if you've been on for the journey, that's 20 weeks that we've been coming along together. And unlike a webinar, today is a two-way conversation. We tend to hold questions until the end, but you can use the chat function throughout, and we'll try to support as best we can.
Just taking you through into a bit of a recap for the last session. Last session we focused on what providers needed to finalise before today. We stepped through participant communications, workforce readiness, business processes, billing and system changes. We also looked ahead to implementation, including participant inquiries, statements, billing outcomes and post-go-live monitoring.
That poll that we took at the last session for those that you were here indicated that provider feedback has been positive. Most respondents reported being at least moderately confident about implementation and rated the sessions as very useful. We've since heard in other engagements that the sector has felt well supported through this change and we actually anticipate fewer people on the call today.
And that's probably because particularly in some of those bigger organisations who are plugging into the API with Services Australia, that they're feeling quite confident. We do change gears a bit today to look to what happens over the next few weeks. But yeah, we expect that fewer people would be on the call as we go through.
Final go-live communications and Implementation activities have continued since we last met. So communications for older people have been delivered through My Aged Care News, Engagement, social media, and sector partners including OPAN, CODA, and FECA. Priority web content has been updated or drafted.
The Support at Home Service list was updated on the 24th of September and work has continued on the My Aged Care website, the fee estimator and remaining programme manual changes. So as I mentioned today, we're moving from readiness to practical Implementation Support. We will work through common scenarios, the actions providers can take and where to go for help.
We will also use the practical provider focused approach developed through these sessions to support future changes. So you'll shortly start to hear from us about how we're going to work with you to support the extension of the end-of-life pathway as well. I'll hand back to Penny and I'm so glad we've got Penny back from leave. She had some a well end break over the last few weeks, but it's really great to have her here on this milestone because she really has been one of the key drivers working with the sector on this change. So over to you, Penny.
WARD, Penelope 5:40
Thank you, Claire, and welcome everybody. And I echo Claire's sentiment around the efforts of the sector to bring this change to where we are today. Today marks the commencement of the personal care contribution change. And as Claire said, providers are moving from preparation into implementation and stabilising the change.
And so from today, personal care is treated under the clinical supports contribution category and participants do not pay contribution for eligible personal care services delivered from 1 October. And so the immediate focus for providers from today is checking billing, claiming participant statements and responding to participant inquiries and resolving any issues that might arise. And providers should also monitor service demand, workforce capacity, and escalate any recurring system or operational issues. Now, for providers who are working through this change, Implementation Support will continue for you through the Support at Home Implementation Team. We also have the Community of Practice and also Services Australia as well. And we'll give you and remind you of how you can connect into these channels as we're moving through today's session. And just to let you know, for our team, it doesn't stop for us now.
We have intense support in place in the, certainly today and in the coming weeks to identify and respond to any emerging issues that might come through.
And so as I said, we've moved from preparing for the change to supporting implementation. The next slides that we'll be working through are the common situations that providers might encounter from 1 October. And you'll remember from a few sessions back, we spoke about some of those critical scenarios to avoid.
And so today we're going to be working through some situations that may be realised and we'll focus on the practical actions providers can take and the support available to providers. And the aim is to help providers respond consistently, resolve issues promptly and support clear conversations with participants.
And so let's start with one of the most important scenarios. If a participant has been charged a contribution for personal care delivered from today at 1 October, the first step is to confirm the service date, understand where the issue occurred. And once that's been identified, providers should update the affected records, resolve the charge and explain the outcome to the participant. Now, if this issue is a recurring or a system related issue, it should be escalated early. You don't want that to compound. And so some of the materials that are available to you, you're familiar with these, is the provider readiness checklist for implementation guidance. So apply the change and resolve and monitor performance. And for claiming and payment questions, these can be directed to Services Australia for the aged care provider line with the number on the screen. And while other implementation queries
can come to our team, the Support at Home Implementation Team.
And so moving on, another change, another issue that might arise is explaining the charges after 1 October. Now, not every contribution for other services appears after 1 October will be incorrect. A common question may be why a contribution still appears on a participant's statement after a change has taken effect in these situations, it's important to understand what service the charge relates to and when that service was delivered. Providers should be prepared to explain the difference between the service date and the statement date and help participants understand their statement.
And again, providers should use the provider readiness checklist for implementation guidance. The claiming of payment questions again can be directed to Services Australia. And again, if you're unsure, please e-mail the Support at Home Implementation team. We'll be here to help.
Okay, and so you may have some participants who may not understand what this change means for them. And so explaining it, you may have done that over the last couple of weeks and months, and you may continue to do that throughout the month of October.
and participants may ask what the change means for their individual costs, services and funding. And so start with the participants care plan, their available budget, current services and approvals, and explain that personal care contributions have ceased, but approved services and available funding have not increased and eligibility and approval requirements continue to apply. And discuss the participants individual circumstances and options within the available funding and review the care plan if their needs have changed. Now the stakeholder kit for providers, the Easy Read resource, and the My Aged Care information, the website can support these conversations and go into some detail on how these conversations can be supported.
And participants may also ask what the change means for their own costs, services and available funding. And the key message is that personal care contributions have ceased, but approvals, eligibility requirements and funding arrangements continue to apply. Providers should use the participant's care plan, their budget and current services to explain what the change means to them in their individual circumstances. And again, the stakeholder kit for providers, the Easy Read resource and the My Aged Care Information website can be really particularly useful. And walk through these services with the participant. And of course, if there's any coding or billing errors, making sure that you're addressing those quite promptly.
Okay, and then responding to requests for additional personal care. Some participants as a result of this change may wish to increase the use of their personal care services following the change. And providers should review the participants care plan, available funding and current needs before discussing additional services.
And while personal care contributions have ceased, this does not automatically mean an increase in the participants available funding. And providers may also need to discuss service availability, priorities and time frames when demand increases. And again, the resources that you're seeing on the screen and also reflecting on your own internal organisational processes around care plans, individual budgets, care planning and review processes will help you to work through this as well.
And so as we move towards the next part of this session, Implementation Support. So today's session is about reinforcing the support available for providers as they apply this change. The resources on the slide remain available to support implementation. And always refer to these resources, which is the latest published information. And these will guide you through not only you've got the provider readiness checklist, the stakeholder kit for providers, departmental webpage about the personal care contribution change, and also the My Aged Care website.
And again, take a note on how to get support. On this screen, you'll see how you can get implementation questions answered or what to do if you encounter issues. When you're applying this change, you can contact the Support at Home Implementation team with the e-mail that's on the screen.
The community of practice is also a really great way to engage with the programme and the changes as we are rolling these out. It continues to be a forum to raise questions, share experiences and discuss implementation challenges. And for claiming related inquiries, as I mentioned earlier, providers should continue to work with Services Australia through the aged care provider line with the number that you can see on the screen. Now, also just to flag with those on the meeting today, the service list has also been updated. And so we will put the updated, it's the same link, to the web page, but just to let you know that the Support of the Home Service list has been updated to reflect that the personal care has moved to the clinical supports contribution category. So that has occurred as of today as well. So give you just a moment just to take all that information in and we will also take
the remainder of the time that we've got to answer any questions. We've got plenty of support with us here today. And so if you do have any questions, feel free to put up your hand or you can drop it into the chat as well. Thanks, Claire.
LANCASHIRE, Claire 15:44
Thanks, Penny. Always a great walkthrough of those scenarios. I'm just having a look now in the chat if we've got any questions, any raise of hands? Again, the trend for these sessions for the last few weeks is that it has gone quieter and I take that as that people are feeling really well supported by the work that you've done, Penny. But now is the time if you're noticing any sort of quirks today or as the change is real from today onwards if you want to revisit any of the material. I see a hand from Isha Kang. If the team can support Isha to come off mute, then we can. there we go, and I think we should be able to do it from there.
Bear with us, Isha. Oh, there we go.
Isha Kang 16:40
Thank you. Can you hear me?
LANCASHIRE, Claire 16:42
Yes, we can.
Isha Kang 16:43
Perfect. Just on behalf of my team here at Our Lady of Consolation, just wanting to confirm that all the subcategories under personal care services are coming under clinical, including showering, dressing, non-clinical continence care and assistance with medication administration.
LANCASHIRE, Claire 17:05
Penny.
WARD, Penelope 17:06
Yes, so the personal care contribution category, the services within that have moved into the clinical supports contribution category. So the updated service list will detail the service type, which is personal care, the services and also what is in scope and out of scope.
And I'll pop that in the chat and make available to you for this session and as part of the meeting pack that you can download as well.
LANCASHIRE, Claire 17:37
It did move in its entirety, Isha. A lot of the media that you will see focuses on showering in particular because that got a lot of emphasis but it is the entire category.
Just looking now if there's others in the chat. ... Nicole, again, bear with us while we do the work to bring you up to screen and get you off mute. We've got you on screen, but not off mute, so just bear with us for another second.
Nicole Byrne 18:39
Ah, can you hear me now?
LANCASHIRE, Claire 18:41
Yes, we can. Perfect. Thank you.
Nicole Byrne 18:42
Okay, sorry. Apologies, I haven't got my camera on. I'm actually was driving. I've just grabbed a car park.
So I work in the assessment space. We support assessment services in Victoria and I apologise if this question has come up previously, but my thoughts were, has the department considered the impact on assessment services of the change? And, I suppose, incorporated some support on communications for providers with regards to their clients and how, you know, this change while the clients aren't making contributions, their budget, overall budget hasn't changed and I suppose, you know, because what we see in assessment is that when the needs of clients where they're needing extra services or they run out of budget to pay for the services that they need, they will request a reassessment. And, you know, we don't have statistics, but we know that anecdotally that a lot of reassessments get done without any changes to level. But this obviously impacts assessment services. It impacts the clients who, you know, have no, who were referred without having any prior approvals and it holds up their assessments because it's flooding our incoming referrals.
LANCASHIRE, Claire 20:16
Sure, I will hand to Penny. I suppose part of any changes that we do in this way, we try and limit an impact or a flow back onto assessment services. So, there should be the change doesn't now, if you if you are, have already been assessed as needing personal care, this won't now need you to go back and do any work on the assessor side to be able to draw down more on that. What the kind of flow-on impact is in terms of future reassessments where people were using up their budgets sooner is a bit different.
Penny, did you want to speak to it and then any supports that have happened with assessment orgs as well? And I can have a look through as well just to confirm, Nicole, about what we've done to support on the assessment side.
WARD, Penelope 21:10
Yeah, thanks, Claire, and thank you, Nicole. And yes, we've considered the effects on assessment organisations and providers and providing communications through the established engagement channels. While some changes may affect operational processes, the overall budget has not changed.
WARD, Penelope 21:31
We've encouraged providers to plan early with regards to and anticipate any changes to participant services and the mix of services. So it doesn't automatically, as Claire said, trigger a new assessment. Providers will look at what that service mix might look like and if there is and what the if there is a change in those needs as well and go through the regular process to address those changes.
LANCASHIRE, Claire 22:13
Nicole, did you want any follow up to that? Happy to chat through. I would need to confirm, but I'm fairly certain that there has been additional information provided to assessment organisations about the change. So when people are talking through their needs and now understand that these services no longer attract A contribution. So that's about clients who are either being reassessed now or starting their Support at Home journey, that there would have been information provided. But yeah, everything we try and do tries to not push any further work back onto the assessment, given how wait lists are tracking at the moment for those services, but Nicole, any further questions?
Nicole Byrne 23:03
No, I don't have any further questions. Thank you. I mean, we will track, I suppose, to our best ability of the impact and that tends to happen at triage where people sort of explain the reason for or the need for the reassessment or what's changed. So we could potentially monitor that and then just feedback through the appropriate channels.
LANCASHIRE, Claire 23:26
Yeah, thanks. And look, I suppose from an assessment organisation perspective as well, if you're seeing an unintended consequence where the change has been misunderstood and providers think that this does trigger a need for an SPR or reassessment, then let us know because we'd need to do some comms to work on that because that's definitely not the intention. It's not how we've worked through it, but appreciate how things can then play out in practise might be different. So again, we would clarify the process and that this effect is immediate for all people in care right now.
Nicole Byrne 24:05
Yeah, and just another comment. I, you know, I don't think there would be any intentional, you know, impacts, but I think practically on the ground, if clients are using more of their home care budget towards personal care in this example, it is potentially taking budget away from other services that they're currently receiving and then that's the flow-on effect where people aren't, you know, getting the care that they actually need that was set out in their initial support plan. And, you know, it's just that the budget isn't necessarily matching the level of the need.
LANCASHIRE, Claire 24:45
Yep, now I'm understanding that there could be an unintended knock-on by virtue of now drawing down on your budget. I suppose so much of our comms we've tried to emphasise that this isn't, it's not free, it's it is still drawing down on the budget, but you're right that that's I suppose in the post implementation side we need to monitor for any knock-on trends that way as well and again to make sure that people are getting the care that they need but also that we're not putting additional pressure on that assessment and system either. So yeah, really great points and I think that's something for our team to take away and watching the warranty and period but beyond as well.
Just looking again to the chat. I don't, it's a quiet day, Penny, on the chat front, but are there any other questions from the audience? Again, never want to take up more time than we need to from a sector that's incredibly busy, but you do have us here if you've got any burning questions on this one.
I'm not seeing a raise of hands. We've typically started to run these up to about 12 o'clock. It seems like we've covered what we'd need to. These slides will be made available, the recordings there. We'll continue our post-implementation support and consider the communications needed in the coming weeks and the trends that we need to monitor. Please do reach back to the department if you do have questions or concerns or seeing things as they flow on. But I think we might draw it there. Again, massive thanks to everyone who's joined across these 10 sessions, 20 weeks, huge amount of work and huge amount of work in a programme that really is still in its infancy. We know that it's not perfect, that we are refining it. So really appreciate the time that you're taking to work on another change with us. And you will see us again in the coming weeks. So you're not finished with Penny and I will be doing further sessions on the end-of-life extension of that pathway. And we'll have a think about how we continue to tailor those sessions so that they work really well for you. And think about the audience too, because we know the end-of-life pathway draws in other health professionals as well. So stay well, really hope that this change is landing well for older people in the coming days and weeks and we'll see you soon. Thanks everyone.
WARD, Penelope 27:17
Thank you, everyone.