
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 and Aged Care’, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘www.health.gov.au’, ‘Meeting #23’, ‘7 May 2025’]
[The visuals during this webinar are of each speaker in turn via video, with reference to the content of a PowerPoint presentation being played on screen]
Janine Bennett:
Good afternoon. Welcome to our Tech Talk. We’re back with the latest insights into digital transformation for the aged care sector. I’m Janine Bennett, Assistant Secretary and Engagement Lead for the Department’s Digital Transformation Program and I’ll be your moderator for today’s webinar. It’s great to be back with you. And I would like to say a special thank you to Jess Holmick who stepped in for me as moderator for our last Tech Talk.
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Welcome’, ‘Connect by phone’, ‘Dial-in 02 8318 0010 PIN 253955388#’, ‘Session is recorded’, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’]
I’m joining you today from Sydney, the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. I’d like to recognise those traditional owners as well as the people and families with continuing connection to the lands and waters of the region. I’d like to pay my respect to Elders past, present and future and also acknowledge any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today.
Some quick housekeeping before we start. If you have any connection issues during the webinar today our phone dial in details are on your screen and they’re also available in your meeting invite. Feel free to use those in the event that your video fails. Today’s session will be recorded and the video will be shared on our Departmental website in the coming weeks as is our normal practice so you and your colleagues can go back and watch the session again or feel free to refer interested parties to that for details.
Okay. As always we’ll do our best to leave plenty of time at the end of today’s presentations for your questions. If you have a question feel free to type it into the Q&A tab in the top navigation bar on Teams so they’re ready and waiting and so that we can get them queued for the Q&A session in the last half hour of the webinar. You may remember that at our last Tech Talk we changed our approach to Q&A due to caretaker mode. With the election outcome decided and caretaker period now winding up whilst we’re still awaiting the formal announcements regarding our Ministerial team we’re planning to run this session with the same rules as the last Tech Talk. So I’ll be reading questions on your behalf today. You’ll have all opportunity to get the questions into the Q&A in the webinar screen and also to vote up questions that are of particular interest. By our next Tech Talk we’ll definitely be returning to our usual interactive Q&A format.
Okay. Keep in mind that our focus here at Tech Talk is on technology and the delivery work surrounding that. We’ll try and answer as many questions as we possibly can in the time that allows but where we don’t have the right representatives in the room to give you a real answer we’ll take that offline and we’ll make sure that we get that question back to the right people and we come back to you with any outstanding questions.
I’d also like to extend a welcome to any media representatives who are attending the webinar today. Great to have you with us. We appreciate your ongoing interest in this important work for the aged care sector. A quick reminder to you though that media questions should go to the Department’s media and events team at news@health.gov.au. They’re the best placed folks to assist you with those formal requests so I’ll send you there for the media questions.
Okay. And now onto our agenda.
As usual first up on today’s agenda we’ll have Fay Flevaras, the CDIO of Digital Services at the Department of Health and Aged Care. Fay will give us an update on our digital transformation roadmap and online resources. We’ll then have Susan Trainor here to talk about changes with residential payments and subsidies for the new Aged Care Act. Susan will take a few questions after her update as she’s not able to stay for the full session. So if you have questions that are around residential payments and subsidies get those in early. Then I’ll be back on stage to give you an update on our digital transformation digital maturity work and our impact assessment work. And then we’ll have Paul Linden who will round out our agenda with a presentation on the Places to People reform. As always we’ll finish up with that much loved Q&A.
Okay. Without further ado I’d like to introduce you to our host for the day Fay Flevaras, Chief Digital Information Officer. 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 and Aged Care’, ‘Australian Government’, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’]
Thank you Janine and hello everyone. It’s great to be back and thanks for joining us today. As usual I’d like to extend a special hello to all of you who are attending for the first time to our Tech Talk. Welcome. We’ve got plenty to share with you here today. And as always let’s start with a look at our digital transformation roadmap and all the work that we’re doing at the moment.
So our roadmap is a forecast of the current work plan that we do. I share this with the disclaimer, every Tech Talk, this is the technical delivery roadmap. What you see here is our digital delivery plan. And it’s important to note this timeline supports the aged care reform agenda but is not and should not be considered an official commitment of deliverables. That happens elsewhere outside of our Tech Talks. We often may sequence the way we deliver things a little bit differently so in that case the dates that you see here are not your official launch dates.
As I say every Tech Talk we make a point of sharing this roadmap early and often so that we can be transparent with you about what we’re working on and how we’re planning for all the work. And whenever there’s a change we’ll call it out so you know from one Tech Talk to the next.
So I’ve got a lot to share with you today starting with changes for the My Aged Care systems. There’s a significant amount of work that’s underway to ensure the Aged Care Gateway system has the appropriate data and record structure that will support the new Aged Care Act and the changes under the Support at Home Program for the 1st of July. So we’re updating the Commonwealth Home Support Program’s service catalogue to align the catalogue with the legislative care service model that’s coming. Our Department’s centralised service list will provide a consistent definition of the services offered under the Support at Home Program. So the Support at Home will also use and build upon the care services model established by the new Aged Care Act and the regulatory reforms program. So we’re also updating the various portals and the applications across the aged care ecosystem that will consume this care service model. We’re incorporating changes to provider organisations and reflecting the changes to a single registered provider arising from the provider deeming process that’s currently occurring in GPMS.
From the 1st of July all providers will be registered under the new Act for 2024. Their information will be set up in the Aged Care Gateway based on their registration categories. Their service attributes will continue to be configured by the provider themselves. So for example availability, timings and specific services delivered allowed as per their new registration categories. So from the 1st of July all providers will be registered with us and providers are encouraged to verify and update the rest of their details through the service and support portal noting for Support at Home your outlets will be created and available to you to edit from the 1st of July. And we will use your existing home care information as the basis on most of the data points that will be made available to you that you’ve already got. Providers should verify and update their details including the services they are delivering, the service delivery area, the service availability, their pricing, and validate that the outlet names reflect the services that are delivered.
Some of the other changes to the Aged Care Gateway include providers will have access to their clients’ supporter information in the Aged Care Gateway. The new Integrated Assessment Tool will be updated to create a support plan for Support at Home so that the support plans and the referrals will look different for these clients. And clients assessed for residential care or transition care will not be impacted. Working with our partner agencies we’re updating our systems to ensure Services Australia can continue to administer aged care payments and Services Australia are updating their own systems to ensure that clients can access accurate information on the Support at Home Program from their Services Australia channels.
A few more bits. I told you there was a lot happening. We’ve got improvements to eligibility pathways which will enable clients to provide details about age, Indigenous status and functional needs when they apply for aged care. So this information will then be used to determine if they’re eligible for an aged care assessment and what type of needs assessment is required. We’ve got end of life assessment updates which will mean assessment organisations can record additional information about clients’ circumstances and high level functional needs they capture during their triage process. So that information can be used to decide if a client is eligible for an aged care assessment and if so what types of needs assessment is required.
We’ve got changes to the classification decision support. Clients will be automatically recommended a Support at Home classification to suit their assessed needs. This functionality will process the outcome of the needs assessment and provide an integrated assessment tool or an IAT recommendation as we call it. And under a new prioritisation system for Support at Home upon completion of an aged care assessment clients will be recommended a priority category so they can enter the prioritisation queues to receive their full aged care funding in an appropriate and timely manner.
And lastly but not least we’ll be making changes to existing letters and notifications. This will mean that clients receive accurate and up to date information in line with the new Aged Care Act implementation. They can stay across all enhancements and be informed of their decisions made on their aged care services.
So that was the changes for the My Aged Care Gateway part. Two other sections of change we’ve got for B2G and GPMS. So for our Business to Government Gateway we’re making changes to all four APIs that are available in production to ensure that they’re up to date and compliant with the new Aged Care Act. So that’s the authentication service API, the registered nurses, provider management and client management APIs. So you can get online to the developer portal and see all the details of those changes.
Moving on to GPMS which is our Government Provider Management System. Since we have a Places to People segment coming up I will not mention any of those changes and I’ll leave that for Susan so I don’t steal her thunder. But we are making enhancements in other areas including the interface to the aged care management and payment system that supports sharing of the new provider data that must be used to process payments under the new Act. There’s changes to the implementation of the new regulatory model which providers will be required to submit to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission a number of new forms relating to new registrations, registration renewals and variations to registrations, including information on associated providers. And then what we’ll do is we’ll extract that information from their systems and bring it into GPMS and then GPMS will be updated to enable the storage, view and editing of this data as the provider register. So we would love to have built all of those new things into GPMS but given time constraints this is the solution that we could build in time for 1st of July.
As a result we’re updating existing capabilities in GPMS with managing providers and associated providers through existing accounts and their contacts. So things like places management, service management, the ability to transfer and combine service, address management, and we’re refactoring some of the GPMS integrations to other critical ICT systems downstream to ensure that we’re passing all of the new data model consistently throughout the ecosystem. We’re also making enhancements to the Manage Your Organisation tile to provide a seamless pathway for providers to view and update their information and interact with the Department. And lastly we have a data migration exercise that we need to do to ensure that GPMS contains all of the up to date and appropriate and legislative compliance data for the 1st of July and making sure that data is primed all through the ecosystem ready for the 1st of July.
So that’s the roadmap update. It’s a wrap for that. There’s a lot going on and I’m expecting lots of questions later on in the piece. But let’s move on to a couple of other bits of updates around resourcing. We’ve published and updated a lot of resources since the last time we spoke to you at Tech Talk. This document which is the New Aged Care Act – A Guide to Digital Changes for Providers, we’ve mentioned this one before but it has been updated so we’re just letting you know that there’s been changes. The main changes are around transition timelines have been updated to include support that’s available to you. There’s new information around the deeming requirements, references to new guidance material around Support at Home claims. This is in a new table with links to system guides and resources for each relevant system to support providers keeping their service information up to date. There’s new links to the Services Australia technical specifications, to the GPMS conceptual data model that might come in handy for a few people, and the document lists a summary of changes so you can go straight to the relevant changes that were in the page.
A lot of these changes relate to questions that you guys have all been asking us over the last couple of Tech Talks so please go in and have a look. The update took place in March and there’s another update coming towards the end of this month. So it’s definitely worth bookmarking this one and coming back to it.
There’s also a range of other online resources to help technology enablers involved in IT system changes understand what’s changing under the new Act. We’ve made some changes to our website so it’s easier for you to find this information. So this is kind of like the hook into the resources page. From the ‘Prepare for the New Aged Care Act’ page you can access the sector change plan, navigating the reforms, both key resources for technology enablers and others. And you’ll also find links to a series of resource hubs including a resource hub specifically for technology providers. We’ve posted that link for you in the chat and QR codes you can see on your screen. These will be made available to you later on and you can also navigate to all of this from the new Aged Care Act tile on the Department’s home page. So really trying to make it as easy as possible for you guys to find the information through multiple different pathways.
Next some existing resources that might be useful to help answer some of the questions relating to Support at Home. There have been enquiries relating to service price caps for Support at Home. These price caps will not come into effect until the 1st of July 2026. And so this aims to help ease the transition by allowing providers to set their own uncapped prices for the first year of Support at Home and when they do come in the prices will be set by Government under advice from the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority as stated in the program manual.
So the approach taken to the Support at Home service list is outlined in their pricing approach in the consultation paper from last year. So if you’ve had a question about pricing caps this is the place to go. We’ll also let you know when more information and the results of the consultation are released. There are other useful Support at Home resources on our website which are regularly being updated. So again access these materials by scanning the QR codes or the links in the chat, and then I’d advise bookmarking them and having a look on the regular. We do try and keep a bit of a change log so you can see when things have changed.
There’s a new Support at Home User Guide as well. The guide will help Home Care providers specifically to submit claims through to Services Australia. This has been definitely an area that we received lots of questions around. It explains how to register and access the portal, view participants’ budgets, submit a claim and upload your invoices. And there’s also a handy fact sheet that gives you a step by step guide on how to complete all of this.
And staying with the Support at Home theme because there’s a lot new there in that space, is an example of the monthly statement has now been published. I know I definitely got a question on this one last time and you asked about what it should look like. I think it’s been asked in other forums too so I’m pleased to confirm this is now available to you. And the template is for guidance only and the intent is to assist providers in understanding what information needs to be provided to care recipients.
And last but not least star ratings provider review period has been extended by an additional one week. We understand there’s a lot going on. This was due to an issue impacting the display of updated star ratings in our system in GPMS and so we’ve extended it by a week. This affected providers’ ability to review their ratings for the upcoming quarterly update and so this issue has now been resolved and we’re giving you some additional time. And we apologise for any inconvenience that that may have caused.
Okay. That’s my update folks. There was a lot there and I know there’s even more information but we thought these were the highlights for you. I’m now pleased to hand over to Susan Trainor to talk to us about residential fees, means testing and accommodation reforms. And don’t forget we’ll be doing a small Q&A straight after her presentation so if you’ve got any questions pop them in the Q&A now. Susan over to you.
Susan Trainor:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Residential means testing and Accommodation reforms’, ‘Susan Trainor’, ‘Assistant Secretary’, ‘Contributions and Accommodation Reform Branch’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Australian Government’, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’]
So before I get into what’s actually changing in the reforms it’s really important to note that some of the key aspects of the residential care contributions and means testing system will stay the same as they do currently. I’ll cover this briefly now before we get into the changes.
So the Government will remain the majority funder of residential aged care covering 73% of all aged care costs. All residents will continue to pay the basic daily fee and it will continue to be set by Government at 85% of the single base rate of the [0:20:30]. The treatment of income and assets in the means assessment will remain the same. Importantly this includes no changes to the treatment of the family home which will continue to be capped at just over $206,000 or valued at $0 if there is a protected person living in it. And the current financial hardship arrangements that enable people facing financial difficulty in meeting their aged care costs to apply to Services Australia for a reduction in their contributions will continue to apply.
Looking at what will change for means testing now. Under the reforms Government will move to fully fund clinical care across the aged care system. That’s both Support at Home and residential aged care. This means that the current means tested care fee will be abolished for new residents and replaced with two elements. The first of these is means testing the hotelling supplement which is currently paid for for all residents in full by Government, and a new means tested contribution which we’re calling the non-clinical care contribution which has as part of it a daily dollar based cap and lifetime dollar and time based caps. Means testing reforms will result in around half of all new residents paying more for their residential aged care than they would under the current arrangements. In addition there will be new reporting requirements for residents and providers to notify the Government of changes in circumstances that will result in a change to the residents’ means tested fees. This will also apply for people currently in residential aged care.
There will continue to be a hotelling supplement that tops up the basic daily fee because there is a gap between the value of the basic daily fee and the full cost of providing everyday living services in residential aged care. Currently the Government fully funds the hotelling supplement for all residents regardless of their needs. Starting from the 1st of July 2025 the hotelling supplement will be means tested for new residents. Residents with income and/or assets above the relevant thresholds – so that’s income equivalent to the cut off of the Commonwealth seniors health card or about $99,000 a year or assets over $238,000 – will pay some or all of the hotelling supplement.
Moving on to the non-clinical care contribution now. The current means tested care fee will be abolished for new residents entering care after the 1st of July 2025. A new means tested nonclinical care contribution or NCCC will be introduced to cover non-clinical care costs such as bathing, mobility assistance and provision of lifestyle activities. Individuals will not begin contributing to their non-clinical care costs until their income and assets are significantly higher than when the current means tested care fee commences. Currently individuals begin contributing to the means tested care fee at assets over about $206,000. Under the reforms residents would begin to contribute to their non-clinical care if they have assets over $502,981 or income over $131,279 or a combination of the two.
In addition the NCCC is capped in three different ways. The first of these is a daily cap which is a $101.16 cap which applies to ensure that no resident anywhere in the system is contributing to their clinical care costs. The second is a four year time based cap which applies from the day a person begins making a non-clinical care contribution. Once they’ve made four years’ worth of days of contributions they will make no more contribution no matter how much they have spent on the non-clinical care contribution and that protects people who stay in care for a long time.
Finally there’s a $130,000 lifetime cap for the non-clinical care contribution and that is a combined cap which includes any contributions that the person has made in the Home Care Program or Support at Home before they enter residential aged care. Importantly all three of these caps apply to the non-clinical care contribution but not the hotelling supplement or the basic daily fee.
A no worse off principle will apply for existing residents. This means that those who are living permanently in residential aged care on the 30th of June this year will have their current means tested fee arrangements maintained until they leave care unless they make a personal choice to move across to the new system which they are entitled to do if they believe that it may be in their personal best interests to do so. Their accommodation payments will also not change because they have already signed a contract with their provider. I’ll go into further details on the accommodation reforms in a moment.
The new arrangements for means testing will only apply to new permanent entrants to residential aged care from the 1st of July 2025. It’s something we’ve had asked a few times, which is about respite residents. A person who’s in respite on the 30th of June is not eligible for the no worse off principle. It’s about people who have permanently entered residential aged care before that date. There’s also an exception for individuals who are receiving a Home Care Package or approved for a Home Care Package as of the 12th of September 2024 which is the date that the Support at Home reforms were announced. This group will pay contributions under the current system unless they opt into the new system even if they don’t enter residential care until after the 1st of July.
Both providers and residents will also have new mandatory reporting requirements under the new Act. These changes will help ensure residents’ means assessments and fees are up to date and correct. Providers will be required to regularly report individual refundable accommodation deposit balances to Services Australia. If the information provided by the provider does not match the resident’s means assessment Services Australia will then confirm the correct information with that individual and update their means assessment if required. This means it will be easier for care recipients to keep their financial information and means assessments up to date to ensure their fees are correct.
Residents including those already in care will also be required to report changes to their financial circumstances. However individuals are able to opt out of disclosing their income and assets if they wish. If they do this they’ll be treated as what we call means not disclosed. Under current legislation residents who are classified as means not disclosed are not eligible for Government support with their accommodation costs or means tested fees. Under the new legislation individuals will be able to elect to be means not disclosed and they will also as well be treated as means not disclosed if they don’t enter a means assessment. And individuals that meet this definition are not eligible for Government support with their accommodation costs and would be required to pay the full value of the hotelling supplement and the full daily cap amount for the nonclinical care contribution. A person who has elected to be means not disclosed can at a later date choose to complete a means assessment and have a fee system applied to them based on what their actual means are but that will not be backdated. So it is in the best interests of residents to go through that means assessment process as soon as they can because effectively that will ensure that we’re only asking them to contribute based on those income and assets tests what the Government has indicated that they should be asked to pay and that the Government will pay the rest for them.
Turning to accommodation reforms now. The Government announced three initial accommodation reforms in response to the Aged Care Taskforce. The first of these was an increase to the maximum room price that a provider could advertise without prior approval from the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority. This increased from $550,000 to $750,000 on the 1st of January this year. That rate will also be indexed on the 1st of July each year going forward starting from 2025. Providers will also be required to retain a portion of each new RAD or RAC which is a refundable accommodation contribution for new residents entering from the 1st of July this year and we will also introduce indexation of daily accommodation payments to ensure that their value for providers does not erode over time.
Turning to the RAD and RAC retention now. Starting from the 1st of July this year aged care providers will be required to keep a small portion of each eligible, new, refundable accommodation deposit, RAD, or refundable accommodation contribution which is a RAC. The amount retained will be calculated based on a retention rate of 2% per annum applied as a daily rate on the RAD balance. The retention period will be capped at five years to protect residents who remain in care for a long time. This retention applies to both the RADs and the RACs, which is for the contribution made by a person who is partially supported by the Government for their accommodation costs, to ensure consistency across different types of refundable payments made by residents. For people who pay by combination of RAD and a daily accommodation payment the RAD retention will apply to the component paid by a lump sum only.
Residents who enter care permanently before the 1st of July 2025 will not pay retention on their RAD or RAC balance. That includes cases where the person has entered residential care before the 1st of July 2025 but is paying the daily accommodation deposit and doesn’t actually make the lump sum deposit until after the 1st of July. It’s all based on their date of entry to care rather than the date of payment of the deposit. And unlike when other fees are deducted from residents’ RAD balance individuals are not required to maintain the agreed room price when the reductions are the result of a RAD retention amount.
Currently once an individual enters residential aged care and starts paying the daily accommodation payment or DAP the amount remains fixed even though the costs of maintaining their accommodation increases for the provider over time. From the 1st of July this year new DAPs will be adjusted on the 20th of March and 20th of September each year based on the Consumer Price Index just like the Government funded accommodation supplement for supported residents. These dates were chosen as they’re the dates that the aged pension increases ensuring pensioners do not have to pay more as a share of their pension income as a result of indexation. This change ensures that providers can keep up with rising costs and continue offering quality accommodation. There will be no changes to those daily accommodation contributions paid by partially supported residents which are updated at regular intervals through increases to the accommodation supplement rate. And this change will bring the treatment of DAPs into line with the contributions of partially supported residents.
Finally the RAD/RAC retention arrangements and DAP indexing arrangements will not apply to everybody immediately on the 1st of July 2025. These changes will apply to people who first enter residential care after the 1st of July 2025. Unlike the means tested fee arrangement people eligible for the no worse off principle under Support at Home who had their Home Care Package approval on the 12th of September 2024 who haven’t entered permanent residential care before the 1st of July will have these changes applied to them. So a person who is eligible for the no worse off principle in Support at Home who enters residential care for the first time after the 1st of July this year will be grandparented for the means tested fees but will not be grandparented for the RAD/RAC retention or DAP indexation. And that’s reflecting the fact that that’s a private agreement between the resident and their provider.
Residents who are in permanent residential aged care before the 1st of July 2025 will remain subject to their existing arrangements for accommodation payments while they remain in their current aged care home. This is true even if they enter before 1 July but do not pay their RAD until after 1 July. This means that the RAD/RAC retention arrangements and DAP indexing arrangements will not apply to these people even if they move from one service to another provided they haven’t made a choice to opt in to the post 2025 means testing arrangements or left residential aged care permanently for at least a period of 28 days.
Hopefully you could all hear me well enough through that. I apologise. My headset decided to give up at the exact wrong moment. So hopefully you’ve been able to hear me and I think we were going to do a short period of questions. I’m not sure if I’m doing those with Janine or Fay but hopefully we can still do some questions even with the flaky sound.
Janine Bennett:
We’ve got some questions queued and ready to go. Folks if you want to just bring me to screen as well. One of the things that did come back – and we got this from a number of people so thank you everybody for letting us know – the audio was dropping in and out a little bit. So we had a great suggestion from Todd that we actually re-record your presentation again and that we include that when we post the video. So we’ll send an email once that’s live to get everybody to that. I think towards the end though we did start to get much better audio. So thank you Susan for that. But if you get a couple of questions that you think you answered that’s probably why. Okay. So the first question is from Tom.
Q: For clients who currently pay how will these be capped? Will it be a monthly cap? Since clients pay contributions on an invoice basis how will we cap this?
Susan Trainor:
For current residents?
Janine Bennett:
For clients who currently pay an ITF.
Susan Trainor:
Right. Okay. So an income tested care fee, that’s a Home Care Package contribution rather than a residential aged care package. So those were a Support at Home contribution change so we could cover those perhaps in writing afterwards because it’s not actually about residential aged care.
Janine Bennett:
Okay. All right. No worries. We’ll have a look and see if we’ve got someone around who can answer that one. Okay.
Q: For residential means tested fees how do providers determine what contribution class a person is before they come into care?
That’s the first question.
Q: Informed financial consent is harder when the means tested fees depend on their status in September 2024.
And that one was an anonymous question.
Susan Trainor:
Great. So that’s I think a question about that no worse off principle for people who are eligible for the Home Care, Support at Home transition where they’re also eligible to remain under the current arrangements if they enter residential care after 1 July. Now the answer for that is that we have got a record of all of the individuals who were in a Home Care Package on the national priority system or approved for a package as of the 12th of September 2024 and that will be processed through the Services Australia system. When a person goes through their means assessment for entry to residential aged care that will flag that they will default into the current system. Obviously as I mentioned if they enter after the 1st of July there’s no difference to how they’re treated for accommodation. They would be under the new system either way. But it will be done through the Services Australia means testing system which is the same system as determines how much means tested care fee a person pays today or how much hotelling supplement and non-clinical care contribution they’d pay under the new arrangements.
Fay Flevaras:
So we would do that for them basically Susan right? So we’re checking who’s in there before and who’s coming in after and who’s in the transition and Government systems, albeit these ones are Services Australia systems, we’ll determine all of that and provide you guys with the information when they do the assessment.
Susan Trainor:
Yep. And Services Australia will notify the individual and their provider of that outcome.
Fay Flevaras:
Excellent.
Janine Bennett:
Brilliant. So the next question sort of leans into this I think. It says:
Q: If the means test assessment isn’t finished by Services Australia when a person enters permanent care are they going to be treated as means not disclosed?
And that’s a question from Andrea.
Susan Trainor:
That’s a tricky one. Look there’s no intended change to the treatment of people who haven’t completed their – where they’ve provided that information and then we’re still waiting for Services Australia to conclude that, that will not change. I’d have to double check what the actual current system looks like but that’s not intended to change as a result of these reports.
Janine Bennett:
Okay.
Q: Not all new residents will be paying the NCCC.
And where we’ve got acronyms maybe if you don’t mind just giving us what they are in full because often people will say what did that acronym mean?
Q: Not all new residents will be paying the NCCC and hotelling fees. Doesn’t the no worse off rule mean some incoming residents remain under the current fee structure?
Susan Trainor:
Yes. That’s right. So those people who were eligible for the no worse off principle in Support at Home – so that’s the people who were in a Home Care Package on the 12th of September 2024 or people who are on the national priority system or approved for a package on the 12th of September 2024 – those people are eligible and they will be default enter into the system under the current means tested care fee model unless they choose to change to the new system. And they may choose to do that because they may have received financial advice that means they understand that to be in their best financial interests to do so. But by default they will enter under the current means tested care fee arrangements that we have had since 2014.
Janine Bennett:
Thanks Susan. And that was another question from Andrea. Thanks for those two questions Andrea. Marlene asks:
Q: Will hotelling supplement still show on the payment summary even if the resident is receiving a zero payment?
Susan Trainor:
That I don’t know the answer to. I think that would be a question I might need to consult colleagues at Services Australia on I’m afraid.
Janine Bennett:
Yep. That’s great. We can come back on that one. Sorry Fay.
Fay Flevaras:
I was just going to say we can take some of these away Susan because we don’t want you feeling like you’re in the hot seat to remember every single one of them. But this is one I’m just going to pick up and ask if that’s all right Janine, and hopefully I’m not - - -
Janine Bennett:
No. No. Jump in Fay.
Fay Flevaras:
But it’s one that I actually got from a provider earlier in the week separately which is:
Q: Do they deduct the 2% from the RAD or RAD per annum based on the 2% or the original RAD? Or is it the 2% from the reduced RAD?
Susan Trainor:
It’s off the reduced RAD. So it’s off the balance. So in month one the provider deducts the amount and then month two is calculated based on what’s left over.
Fay Flevaras:
And so it was $500,000 now it’s moving to $490,000, you’re doing the 2% on the $490,000.
Susan Trainor:
That’s right. Yes.
Janine Bennett:
So tell me if this is the same question. Not understanding this calculation process I want to get it from the experts. So Marlene asked:
Q: Is the retention calculation based on the RAD/RAC balance less previously calculated retentions or on the RAD/RAC amount only?
Is that sort of a similar question?
Susan Trainor:
It is the same question. So it’s based on that balance. So as we deduct the RAD retention from it then the amount is different. And then the one difference between that compared to – some providers you have to be allowed to take your daily accommodation payment if you use a combination out of your RAD, and some providers agree to people paying their other fees out of the RAD. But over time an individual is meant to then top that RAD balance back up again. And so they’re required to do that for all other fees but not for the RAD retention itself. Once that’s been deducted that’s gone.
Fay Flevaras:
And let’s just play that scenario out a little bit more Susan. So let’s say they took some out for other fees. Does that mean the 2% is still on the reduced RAD amount including the other fees, and when they top it back up, then it’s the 2% based on the topped up RAD amount?
Susan Trainor:
Yep. So it’s whatever the balance is. And it will be up to the provider to work through those top ups.
Janine Bennett:
Great. So just so you know you’ve knocked out about four questions in two answers there. So good job team. Okay. Final question and then we’ll let Susan rush off to her other commitment. This one is from Jay.
Q: Please clarify once again about the respite residents who are in the facility before 30 June and continue to be a respite resident on and after the 1st of July 2025 in relation to the new requirements.
So if we can just clarify that again for Jay please.
Susan Trainor:
Sure. So really the scenario that we’ve been asked about a few times now is we’re talking about people who’ve entered permanent residential aged care for being eligible to stay under the current fee arrangements and to not have the RAD retention applied. We do know that there’s a small number of people who enter residential care in a respite place and then more or less immediately move from being a respite resident to a permanent resident. And what matters is their status on the 30th of June 2025. If they are a respite resident on that date they are not eligible to remain under the current system and would need to pay RAD/RAC retention even if they stay in care and move directly from being a respite resident to a permanent resident. They’d need to have permanently entered residential care on the 30th of June to be eligible for that.
Janine Bennett:
Great. All right. Thank you Susan. I’ll get off screen and I’ll hand back to Fay.
Susan Trainor:
Thanks.
Fay Flevaras:
And we really appreciate it. I know it was a lot of information folks and we’ll let Susan go and we’ll move on to our next topic. Let me see where I’m up to sorry. Get my notes happening. Let’s see. Let’s see. Lost track of where I am.
We’re doing maturity research. Well actually Janine I’m just passing back to you aren’t I. Sorry. Took me long enough to figure that one out. And so we’ve been doing some awesome work around a digital transformation impact assessment and some maturity research and we just want to give everyone the latest updates on those. So over to you to let them know.
Janine Bennett:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Digital Transformation Impact Assessment and Aged Care Digital Maturity Research’, ‘Janine Bennett’, ‘Assistant Secretary’, ‘Digital Business and Sector Engagement Branch’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Australian Government’, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’]
Thanks very much Fay. I didn’t remember that I was next on the agenda either so that’s both of us. Okay. So as Fay mentioned we’ve been doing some really exciting work around a digital transformation impact assessment project. Alithea Seemann was at the last Tech Talk and she gave you an update on this. But we basically wanted to give you the current results from this fast moving piece of work. So effectively the intent for this work was we were conducting impact assessments across the sector with the idea of helping providers better identify the digital and operational impacts of the new Aged Care Act. So we ran an expression of interest in February for volunteers to join a multidisciplinary team to help progress this work and from those respondents we selected 11 providers and ICT vendors for the first round of impact assessments. And that selection process as well as the release of the EOI was managed in partnership with the Aged Care Transition Taskforce.
So the folks that were invited to participate in workshops started in mid-February. We ran two workshops in February. We had a total of 25 participants, 11 from provider organisations and 14 from other organisations. We had a good sector coverage across our cohort. So we had some not for profits, some Government and some private for profit organisations in the mix. We made sure the folks that got selected as volunteers were from geographically dispersed locations. So we had participants from every state excluding Northern Territory and Tasmania but some of our participants were national providers so that did help provide a bit of coverage for those areas. They included organisations who operate in regional, rural, metro and remote. It also included representatives from First Nations communities, CALD groups and organisations that support people with disabilities and dementia. And providers of all sizes were in the room. So we had small, medium and large involved.
In addition to our providers our workshops also hosted a number of subject matter experts from various areas including from our policy spaces in the Department of Health and Aged Care and representatives from Services Australia who are really important providers for much of this work that’s happening as part of aged care reform.
So following those initial workshops we had some follow up sessions with providers that allowed us to do some deep dives into their unique scenarios and gather additional insights around the impact of change. And we were able to explore in those sessions specific change items that were really relevant to the particular types of providers we met with.
So just going to the next slide the workshops that we had, the big group workshops, centred around 48 critical changes that will impact providers in some way because of the coming aged care reform. So each of these change items were mapped to an I Can statement. And you’ve probably heard us talk about these statements previously but effectively they’re designed to take reforms and turn them into practical can do statements that providers will need to be able to do to continue their operations from the 1st of July. So in practice as a provider you should be able to refer to these statements and determine whether you can do a particular thing and if you can then you in theory should be ready for the changes that are coming on 1st of July.
So just quickly to kind of recap those statements it’s about understanding the principles of the new Act, reviewing and updating your services according to the new service list. You can update your organisational information. You can update funding and payment processes and information. You can update your internal business processes, training and IT systems to reflect the changes. You can communicate with your existing participants to ensure that they’re ready for the coming change and you can work with your partners to ensure joint readiness. So your partners being your IT vendors and others that help you do your business operations.
So during the workshops we used these I Can statements with our group and we used a Miro board which is a virtual whiteboard to discuss and explore the critical upcoming changes and how they translate to impacts and what organisations think they need to do to respond. So the discussions also prioritised the impacts and importance of various I Can statements and from the total number four were selected as those that had the biggest impact by the providers who were present.
So I Can number one which is understanding the principle of the Act, specifically providers were interested in how that translated to what they needed to do and their workforce needed to do to be compliant including the reporting obligations they had post 1 July. They thought I Can number four around funding and payment processes and information needed to be in place because that obviously linked to being able to make claims and be paid promptly, number five around updating their business processes, training and IT systems so that internally they’re able to reflect the changes to service standards, reporting and compliance, and number six was the other one they felt was very important which was communicating with existing participants, ensuring that they’re ready for the change and that they have their new Service Agreements in place and signed wherever possible.
A few early insights that we gathered during the workshops. So it was a really interesting exercise in terms of testing our impact assessment framework and understanding the impacts from the provider perspective. But we were also able to use this exercise as a means of uncovering some of the key insights from providers about what they’re feeling at the moment and what they’re anticipating for the 1st of July. So obviously something that we’ve talked about before. One of the things that really came through, there was a wide variety in capability and digital maturity across the sector. So we’re not all starting from the same place and providers represent all elements of digital maturity.
One of the things that came out really clear was the unwavering commitment providers have to the service of older Australians and their ability to link all of the changes back to the impact for their customers and their clients was really evident. The manual and administrative burden was definitely something that came out that was of concern and the impacts around the changes were felt more acutely by smaller and regional providers.
When we look at the key early insights that came out – and I’ll just get the slide to move forward. Thank you – of the full list of 48 change items seven were called out as high priority across most of our participants. So these included financial reporting, claiming and Business to Government APIs and then there were a further 13 items received from one or more providers and identified as important. We’ve captured those and they’re reflected on this slide.
Just in terms of the digital transformation impact assessments we’re currently collating all of our workshop results as well as the input from the deep dives and some offline work that we asked our volunteers to do. Over the coming weeks we’ll work on collating that. And we are hoping initially to release a digital transformation impact assessment playbook and insights report to the Transition Taskforce and then hopefully share it more broadly after that. And just for anyone who has been one of our volunteers in this piece of work a big thank you from us. It’s been excellent.
Okay. Just a quick update now on the aged care digital maturity research. So this is another one we’ve been talking to you about for a long time. Chris Bailie did a presentation at the last Tech Talk. This work relates to the development of a digital maturity framework that’s fit for purpose for the sector and helps us determine the level of digital maturity across the sector, looking at barriers and challenges that inhibit digital maturity for aged care providers, looking at the types of supports and enablers that would help to improve their maturity, the core elements of digital maturity that will help providers lead to success and a current baseline for digital maturity across the sector.
As part of this work we’ve done deep dive workshops. We’ve done digital maturity selfassessment which ran from February through to mid-April and was a tool that was provided online. And at the moment we’re in the process of analysing that data and preparing the provider benchmark reports and the market research reports. We’re expecting those to be available round about the end of the month.
The vendor survey went live on the 24th of April and that’s due to close on Sunday the 18th of May. Just for everybody’s visibility we have extended the close date for that one just so we can encourage some more response. So if you’re a vendor organisation in the audience please use this QR code and go along. We’re really keen to hear from our software vendors and IT shops who provide services to the aged care sector. We want to make sure that we’re factoring in your perspectives. It takes about ten to 15 minutes to complete and we’d really encourage you to get involved in that.
For our providers who did the self-assessment survey and identified themselves and nominated to get a benchmark report we wanted to give you a really quick preview of what your individual reports will look like. It basically shows providers how they rated against the average across the survey and across the various maturity categories, the domains of the maturity framework. So the report will provide a one page snapshot that drills down into more detail for each domain.
It will give you your results against the high level top ten domains as compared to the rest of the sector and then it will give you that next layer down. It will show you the sub-domains for each of the top ten domains.
And I think that’s the last slide. I’ll leave it there. Any questions let us know. But I’ll look forward to sharing more on these topics at a future Tech Talk. Thanks so much.
Fay Flevaras:
Let me get myself off mute. Okay. Excellent. Thank you so much Janine. Great update. Looking forward to the final report on those two pieces. Now we’ve got Paul. Thank you for joining us Paul. You’re going to work through the Places to People reform. So over to you.
Paul Linden:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Places to People reform’, ‘Paul Linden’, ‘Director’, ‘Residential Care Division’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Australian Government’, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’]
Okay. Thank you. Hello everyone. So I’ll talk about Places to People. I should just say from the outset this is a change that’s purely about residential aged care, both permanent and short term or respite. So just keep that in mind. If I mention things like places that’s the context.
So today I’ll talk about what Places to People is, the change for people and providers. I’ll touch on the new registration model being rolled out by the Aged Care Safety and Quality Commission and some of the changes we’re doing to the relevant systems.
So moving on what is Places to People? What really we’re talking about here is that from the 1st of July under the new Aged Care Act we’ll allocate residential places to an older person instead of an approved provider. We’re doing this to replace the aged care approvals round or ACAR which you may be familiar with and has been in place for some time. Why are we doing it? Well there’s been lots of reviews and work done that the current system isn’t fit for purpose. So some of the main issues are that the Government chooses where and when places are allocated and where beds can be supplied and that limits the ability for providers to expand their services and meet consumer need which equally limits choice for people.
What does it mean for older Australians? It means that they will be allocated a place but the changes are probably more subtle for a person from day one. So people will still need to be assessed for care as they are now and if approved we’ll automatically give them a place. We talk about a place but really it’s just like a ticket. It’s like a ticket that can be used to find a room with a provider of a person’s choice. Sorry. If we can go back a slide. And so you will still need to find a provider with a vacant room that can deliver care. But in terms of handing the person the ticket or the place there’s a few key things to point out. Firstly there’s no wait list. People will be allocated it as soon as they’re approved for care. There will be no time limits. We’ll never take it away and you’ll be able to use it moving between homes if you wish. Also unlike other programs outside of aged care there will be no fund holding. So funding will still go directly from the Government to the provider.
For providers the key changes are bed licences will cease. So the Department will no longer issue these through the aged care approvals round for permanent or respite care and that will give providers more autonomy on how they approach the market, so including where to build new facilities, how many beds to provide and how best to meet resident preferences and needs. So they won’t have to apply through a sort of bureaucratic Government process.
That said if we move on to the regulation of providers this will still occur however it will be through the new provider registration model managed through the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. There was a webinar on this a week or so ago so I won’t go into detail but you can find some information on the Commissions’ website. But the key point for Places to People is that providers will need to register each aged care home and indicate the number of people that they can care for within that home. So we’ll refer to this as the total number of beds. So that’s a maximum number of people that could be cared for within that home.
Just for existing providers there will be a deeming process. So we’ll ensure that the existing aged care homes are transitioned to the new model and that will be based on the number of current places a provider has.
So the key changes for providers are outlined here in terms of the current and the new model but really the key message is that instead of the Department managing things like allocations of places, transfers, variations and commencement of care, that will all happen through the Commission and it will involve changing the registration for that aged care home.
System changes. So we’re making some changes to support the reforms to several systems. The first is My Aged Care. But really the general concept remains the same. So My Aged Care will continue to hold information on the older person. It will include information on their allocation of a place, their approval. People will manage referrals through the aged care system in a similar way to now. We’re also changing Services Australia systems but that’s largely to share information. So we’ll share information on the person’s approval and the allocation of a place. So for providers there will be limited change in terms of the claiming, the entry and exit processes that you undertake now for people in residential aged care. What you will need to do though is to check that a person has been allocated a place before entering them into care and that will occur through the referral process.
We are also making changes to the Government Provider Management System, GPMS. So this will hold that first bit of key information that I mentioned previously and that’s the total number of beds that a home has or the total number that have been registered with the Commission. But we know that whilst that number is relatively stable the number of beds that are available can change from day to day. And so when beds are not available for permanent or respite care in an aged care facility they can be taken offline. And that might be for things like the refurbishment or for other reasons of the provider’s choosing. We know that there are sometimes staffing constraints and other reasons.
So going forward providers will be able to register beds as being offline through the – can we go back a slide please – through the GPMS system and from day one on the 1st of July that will be in GPMS but only as a read only field for providers. And if they wish to change this number they can contact the local network office similar to you currently do. But when we move forward with some future changes hopefully in the next calendar year providers will be able to edit this field themselves on an ongoing basis.
So actions required for older Australians? No action is required basically. We’ll manage your transition. We’ll ensure that everyone with an approval or in care is allocated a place. And we will also on an ongoing basis assign places to people as they’re approved for care. So people don’t need to do anything different. For providers really the key call to action is to ensure that your current place information is accurate. So you really need to go and look at the number of places you have been allocated through ACAR and check that that’s accurate and that will help the deeming process in transitioning to the new model. So you can contact your local state and territory network to update those as you need.
And in terms of how to do that if we move to the next slide there’s some information on our website. There’s further information about the Places to People measure moving forward. There’s also some key dates for providers on when you can still do things in the current system and the cut off dates. So I would recommend having a look at that. And for information on the registration policy you can go to the Commission’s website. And that’s Places to People.
Thanks Fay.
Fay Flevaras:
Thanks. Excellent. Okay. So I think we’re moving into Q&A. And I’ll get Janine up on stage with me and I think there’s lots of questions in the chat from people. We’ll try and get through these systematically and any that we can’t answer immediately we’ll take away. While I’m waiting for Janine to join I do know one of the questions noted that – there’s been a lot of questions over the last couple of Tech Talks and potentially it feels like we haven’t come back with all the answers. That is a combination of waiting for Government decisions and caretaker mode that we were in. Rest assured the team has all the questions and what we might do is just list them and go ‘Look in this resource for this one, look in this resource for that one’. And where there’s a specific question we can come back and answer it. So we are trying to make sure that we’re circling back on all the questions but some of them are very detailed and we do need to refer them to others internally to get those answers.
All right Janine. I’m going to throw to you so you can kind of moderate which ones we need to answer.
Janine Bennett:
Yep. We’ve got heaps of questions so we’ll run with it. Thank you Fay and Paul for being on the panel and also thank you to our SMEs and standbys. We’ve got plenty of expertise behind the scenes which is great. We’ll get through as many as we can as Fay said. Okay. So we’ll start off with a question.
Q: Can providers see a copy of the updated client letters please?
And this one’s from Tracey.
Fay Flevaras:
Client letters. I’m going to – which client letters? There’s probably a few. I’m going to think it’s the new letters that went out recently from the Department. I know that the Department sent out some letters to everyone saying that there will be changes coming on the 1st of July. That was specifically for current Home Care Package participants, noting that the Support at Home Program will commence on the 1st of July, and they should expect their service provider to be in touch to discuss their agreements very soon. I know a number of providers have already started that process of contacting them. I’m assuming that’s the letters. If not whoever wrote that one put another comment into that question and we can clarify a bit more.
I probably want to link it – and just being very transparent about this Janine. Someone else said – there was a question there going we’re doing a lot, and so thank you very much. They enjoy the Tech Talks but there’s still a lot of information that they don’t have. I probably want to put that front and centre and say Service Agreements and contributions are two known issues or gaps if you want to call it around information that we in the Department are still working on sorting out. The Department is actively working through those two areas and some others, but those two in particular, because I’ve noticed questions around Service Agreements and contributions, with the Transition Taskforce to help finalise what appropriate implementation arrangements would look like. Yes we acknowledge there’s not a lot of time left and advice to the sector is expected to be provided shortly including through updates to the Support at Home Program Manual and the Provider Transition Guide, both of which I mentioned earlier in the Tech Talk session and provided QR codes and links to today. I think we’re just waiting for our new Government to be finally appointed and Minister appointments. Just clear some communications through them first and then we can come back to you with exactly some of that detail.
We’ll also be publishing some frequently asked questions this week, imminently, to support providers who take phone calls specifically around the questions on those letters that got sent out to the clients, and so that if those clients contact them they can help answer some of the questions that they might have.
So I just wanted to kind of provide that insight straight up. Anyway over to you. What’s our other questions?
Janine Bennett:
Yeah. No. And it’s a good callout. We’ve had a number of questions about the 1st of July deadline and the pressure on providers and also software vendors in the lead up while they’re still waiting on technical information and other specific information. So I think that was a good one to sort of address off the bat.
Fay Flevaras:
You probably touched on another couple of things there. So for software providers we do acknowledge that there’s not a lot of time for them to do what they need to do. We do know that some software providers will not be able to get it done by the 1st of July. Specifically there was a question I saw around we talked about the four APIs that have been updated in B2G. None of those four APIs are on a critical path for the 1st of July. So those ones, if the software community don’t do those four, I think it’s okay. I suppose the other APIs that Services Australia are running with which is all the payment APIs, they are on the critical path I guess for 1st of July. And it is noted that July will probably be a time where everyone’s kind of reconciling this financial year’s payments and trying to get ready on the unspent funds and then they’ll move to how they will then do payments to look at the new Act together. So I guess watch this space as we provide more information there. Services Australia does have a manual workaround being planned which is a CSV file and that specification on that CSV file is imminent as well so that you can claim manually in the interim.
Probably one other point to add. We do recognise that some people are already saying they’re not going to be able to do something. And so as you would expect Government is monitoring and is closely engaged on the implementation and the readiness progress. We’re briefing them regularly on issues that may arise including through the Aged Care Transition Taskforce. The work we do here with you guys through this channel in Tech Talk and sector partner communities are an integral part of the feedback from how the sector’s going and the information we pass back to Government. So there is no wrong door at this stage for you guys to raise your questions or concerns as they arise. And so please put the detailed specific questions and issues in the chat as we will ensure we can look at those, triage them, respond to them, and also use that information to advise Government.
Noting there is a distinction between what is Government policy – and I can’t change policy in that sense through the Act – and what are implementation issues. So where we need to enact the new Aged Care Act and policy we’re here absolutely to help. And you should put your specifics down like you have been because then we use that to help inform Government. And so we’re encouraging everyone to do this, to raise specific concerns, and then what we’ll be doing is we will be standing up a hyper care team now to assist everyone through the transition and their issues. So we’re not waiting ‘til the 1st of July to stand something up. And we have noted some people have already engaged with us where they feel they’re not going to be ready or they have a known issue. And so please reach out to us and we’ll try and get some more information around what the primary contacts are for that hyper care team. In the meantime just keep raising it here and we’ll make sure that the message gets through. So hopefully that helps.
Janine Bennett:
Thank you. Yeah. Hopefully that gives some answers to a bunch of questions. There’s a question from Diana.
Q: Will there be service codes linked to the service list used in submitting invoices to Services Australia?
And she said another question.
Q: I’m looking for the CSV template for claims and need the finer detail ASAP.
So I’ll just have a look for Roger’s question at the same time while you can start answering Diana’s. Thanks Fay.
Fay Flevaras:
That’s what I’ve just mentioned which was yes, Services Australia will be putting out the spec for the CSV file. It hasn’t been put out yet. We acknowledge that. There will be linking codes, yes, and that will be in the worked up example for the CSV that Services Australia put out there. So we note that. So thanks for that. We don’t have it to give to you today at this stage.
There was a couple of questions maybe for Paul.
Janine Bennett:
Yeah. I was going to move to a Paul question next.
Q: Is it possible for a client assessment to be approved retrospectively in an emergency situation? If so how does the places process work in such cases?
And that’s a question from Rui.
Paul Linden:
Yep. So the system will basically mirror the approval. So if approval is done retrospectively the place will be applied retrospectively also. So there shouldn’t be any impact for that one.
Janine Bennett:
Okay. Thanks for the question Rui.
Fay Flevaras:
Short and sweet answer.
Janine Bennett:
Yeah. That was a quick one. Okay. So the next question is around:
Q: Do you have documents containing technical specifications for the new July 2025 CHSP bulk upload file, what it should contain, or can you confirm that there are no extra fields required? There is disparity between the digital preparedness document provided in March and other webinars that have been attended.
And this one is from Caroline.
Fay Flevaras:
So that’s the same kind of question as the previous one, which is the CSV file. I think Caroline if you can give us a specific of where you think there’s disparate misinformation, so from March compared to what’s coming, that would just help pre-empt any error that we might inadvertently be putting out there. I think the whole payments piece with Services Australia, they do weekly webinars over there. They’ve put a lot of information out. There was that new resource that I talked to earlier today. I think to summarise we need to – in short July should be utilised by providers to finalise their final home care payments, all their claims up until June, to ensure reconciliation of funding allows for unspent amounts to be carried over for Support at Home purposes. So don’t forget we’re transitioning from home care payments in the current financial year. You need to kind of close your financial year, submit all your payments, reconcile it all, and then this must be a prerequisite before Support at Home claiming can commence as there is a broad dependency on funding from the home care payments into Support at Home.
And the CSV file – how do you do those payment claims? It’s either through the APIs in the current environment and then if your current software provider doesn’t get across the line for the 1st of July into the new Support at Home payment arrangements then that’s where the CSV file comes in as a manual workaround. So hopefully that helps. And we’ll get the CSV file out to these channels as soon as Services Australia has it ready for us to distribute.
Janine Bennett:
Thanks Fay. A question that sort of hits on a number of topics that have been raised in the Q&A related to the DEX changes. So the question is:
Q: When will DEX changes be available in technical specifications to cater for the CHSP services, so the Commonwealth Home Support services, change to Support at Home service list and MAC ID for 1 July?
Fay Flevaras:
I don’t have an answer for that one. I’m not sure Paul that’s in your remit. I might have to take that one on notice. Unless any of the support team behind the scenes can get me an answer. But that one’s not one I’m familiar with. Sorry folks.
Janine Bennett:
So I think someone does have some information on that one in the background. Emily do you want to jump in.
Online Participant:
Sorry Fay. I don’t know the exact specifics but there is some information coming out from the Department later this week, early next week, around CHSP and DEX reporting. So just encourage everyone to keep an eye out for those bits of information.
Fay Flevaras:
Thanks Emily. Appreciate that.
Janine Bennett:
And if it comes out before we release our post email we’ll include the link in that as well so you’ll know exactly where to go. Okay. Another question for Paul I think I had. No. It’s just disappeared. I’ll go looking for that in a minute. In the meantime:
Q: Will there be a grace period for providers upon Support at Home’s launch? Since providers have been provided with very little information slowly a grace period to help them get up to speed in terms of systems would ensure participants can continue receiving services with minimal disruption.
That’s an anonymous question. Fay from your visibility of the Taskforce are you able to give us any insights there?
Fay Flevaras:
I understand the question that’s being asked. It’s not something that I can answer here. What you’re describing I think is something that we are conveying internally and that’s all I can say at this point in time. As it stands if we were to go live on the 1st of July what would that look like? A grace period is a strong word. It is an Act and it is legislative and so it really requires Government to decide what that might look like. And so we will just keep working with Government providing your feedback – so thank you for the question – and work it through slowly all together. Thank you.
Janine Bennett:
Great. Thank you. we’ll keep you posted on that one. This is a question about GPMS.
Q: Will there be support for providers to clean up GPMS user lists and key contacts? There are duplicates in the system which require tickets to be open with the My Aged Care Service Desk to resolve which can take a few weeks.
Fay Flevaras:
Yep. And I think they’re the types of things I think we should put into the hyper care based on priority depending on if you need things fixed to be able to implement the transition. As it is today if there’s a problem with GPMS you can absolutely ring up and log a call to make sure you are as prepared as possible for the 1st of July. So I wouldn’t wait ‘til the end to make that request.
Janine Bennett:
Okay. Great. And then another question about GPMS.
Q: Will a GPMS provide ability for a home care provider to merge service IDs without forcing a client discharge?
Fay Flevaras:
Yeah. I’m not sure on that one to be quite honest with everyone. We ourselves are trying to do everything we can to be ready for the 1st of July but sometimes it means some of the enhanced features like all the more complicated ones may not have been able to be implemented in time. I’ll need to take that one away and ask the team and we can come back to you on that one. I can’t – detailed functional piece. Next time I think we might have a GPMS expert on with me so they can answer some of those.
Janine Bennett:
I think that’s a good idea. The next one’s hitting on GPMS as well as My Aged Care service and the support portal. So this question is anonymous but the person has reflected that they have no end of trouble in accessing the My Aged Care service and support portal and GPMS for their three facilities.
Q: Across our team that needs access for five people we seem to have access to most things except the ability to submit 24/7 nursing for one of our facilities. But none of us have access to all of the portal components that we need to report or get the information we need. They ring the helpline, usually told that the problem’s on their end or with RAM and they’re not able to find solutions. Is there a number or email address for us to contact so we can speak with one person from the Government that can help?
You go first Fay.
Fay Flevaras:
No. That’s fine. And conscious of time. I think you should – hopefully you’re a sector partner maybe, our DT sector partners. If you would like to log your call there and then we will facilitate getting you to the right area internally. As I said earlier no wrong door at this point in time. I’m not going to send you through to a helpdesk again. Let’s see how we can help you get it done. You really need to have one GPMS person who’s the administrator that assigns all the roles. And so let’s just make sure you’re set up at the highest level so that you can then get the right oversight.
Janine Bennett:
And just for that person who asked the question I will ask my team to put an email link for our sector partner group into the chat for this meeting. If you would like to email us directly then we can look at your circumstance and have someone troubleshoot for you. It’s a little bit hard to do at the moment because you’re anonymous so we’re not sure how to find you. But if my team can just put that email in and you can reach out to us we’ll keep an eye out for that email.
Okay. A question for Paul. And we might be getting close to being our last question. I’m sorry everybody. So this one.
Q: How will the Government ensure that there are enough residential beds in existence before it approves people for residential aged care? Is it possible that people may be approved where no bed is available?
Paul Linden:
The short answer is yes but it’s a much longer and larger issue. But at the moment people are approved based on their need not based on what may be available in their area. And that will continue to be the case. However there’s a lot of work that is happening in terms of the stewardship to look at the future supply of residential aged care and work out where beds are needed and how to support providers to bring beds in line in those areas. But we know there are thin markets and there are areas where it’s not always easy to get a residential aged care bed. But we are not limiting the allocation of a place or the person’s approval. So the person won’t be limited by their place but we acknowledge that there are areas where there may not be enough physical beds.
Janine Bennett:
Okay. Thank you Paul. Appreciate that answer. And thank you Fay for the many, many questions you also got during Q&A. I think we’re going to have to call it there. Just to let everybody know that email address was published in the Q&A so if you’re looking for the email address to contact sector partners you’ll find that under Michelle’s entry in the Q&A space.
All right. Close to finishing time. So I’ll just quickly thank everybody for all of those fantastic questions. A big thanks to our panellists and our presenters and for everyone who’s working hard behind the scenes especially our partners and colleagues in the sector. Our next Tech Talk is set for Wednesday, 11th of June so please save the date. Please note that we’ll be moving that Tech Talk to an earlier morning timeslot so that we can hear from an overseas speaker. We have Professor John Hirdes from the University of Waterloo joining us for that session from Ontario, Canada. So we’ll apologise in advance to our friends in WA. It does translate to an 8:00am start time for you. That was as late as we could get him. But we did do our best to accommodate our audience in WA.
You can register now from the link that’s on your screen. There’s a QR code there for that. There’s also an email address if you’d prefer to have the link sent to you. If you have agenda items or topics you’d like us to cover let us know by email. We will be collating all of your questions from today as Fay mentioned and we’ll be doing our best to link you back to existing answers that are live on the web now. For any questions that we get that don’t have answers we are funnelling those through to the appropriate subject matter experts and chasing those answers for you.
As always just a reminder that this is an open forum. There’s a variety of views and opinions shared at our Tech Talks. We’re always interested to hear yours. So we look forward to seeing you next time. Fay back over to you to wrap things up.
Fay Flevaras:
Thanks Janine. And yes it’s goodbye for now. And it’s been wonderful to be here and work with you guys again. We hope you found today’s sessions insightful. We thank you for all the questions and insights you give us. To anyone in the sector partner community we’ll see you next Thursday. And to everyone else we’ll see you again in June. And please feel free to reach out. I know there’s a lot going on and we really want to hear from you so that we can be that voice and make sure that we’ve got the pulse of what’s happening which we’re acutely aware there’s a lot to do. And so we want to get the specifics though so that we can carry those through into the Department.
Have a great afternoon and we look forward to seeing you at our next Tech Talk. Thank you very much.
[Closing visual of slide with text saying ‘Thank you!’, ‘Tech Talk post-event survey’, with QR code, ‘Register for Tech Talk 24’, with QR code, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘DTDDEngagementOffice@health.gov.au’]
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Webinar slides
Digital Transformation Tech Talk – 7 May 2025 – presentation slides
About the webinar
Topics this month include:
- our digital transformation roadmap
- information on the Places to People reform
- Digital Transformation Impact Assessment and Digital Maturity Research
- changes to residential fees means testing.
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