Digital Transformation Tech Talk – 9 October 2024

[Opening visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Tech Talk webinar series’, ‘Digital Transformation for the Aged Care sector’, ‘Digital Transformation and Delivery Division, Corporate Operations Group, Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘health.gov.au’, ‘Tech Talk 19’, ’09 October 2024’, with photograph of an aged-care services worker and recipient and the moderator connecting via videoconference and visible on the right-hand side of the screen]

[The visuals during this webinar are of speakers connecting via videoconference and visible on the far right-hand side of the screen, speaking with reference to the content of a PowerPoint presentation being played on screen]

Matt Kenny

Today, as always, we're here to talk about our digital transformation work for the aged care sector.

My name is Matt Kenny, I'm stepping in today to cover for Janine Bennett, our usual moderator who has sadly lost her voice.

For myself, I work in the tech talk space in Janine's engagement branch, and I'll be your moderator for today's webinar.

So Janine, we wish you a speedy recovery and we're looking forward to seeing you back for Tech Talk 20.

I'm joining you today from the lands of the Kaurna people in South Australia. I'd like to recognise those traditional owners as well as the people and families with continuing connection to the lands and waters of this region. I pay my respects to the contributions to this country and to elders past, present and emerging and to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here with us today.

Thank you everyone for joining us. It's good to have you with us.

Before we get into the agenda, a few bits of housekeeping. Our phone dial in details are there on the slide and in your meeting invite too.

In case you do have any issues with your connection, so feel free to keep those handy. We're recording today's session so that we can publish and share it to you afterwards, and we'll post that recording to our website in the next few weeks.

We'll be keeping an eye out for your questions to answer in today's Q and A segment. Your questions about our digital transformation work are always great and we look forward to hearing those. Asking a question is easy.

Just look for the Q and A tab within your teams ribbon and I'll talk more on that in a moment as it's a little different from the way it used to work in Webex.

You can go ahead and post your questions anytime. If you see a question from someone else that you'd like to see answered, go ahead and give that a thumbs up. And if you want to ask your own question, live on camera, we'd love for you to join us on our tech talk stage.

To do that, please make sure you include your name when you post your question and when the time comes, I'll give you a quick heads up before we bring you to the stage. You'll get a notification that your microphone and camera can be turned on, and you just need to turn them both on and then you're on stage with the panel to ask your question.

A quick reminder, as I said, this webinar is recorded so your name, image and voice will appear in the recording on our website. If you do choose to come on stage and if your camera shy, that's no problem, I've got you covered. Put your query into the team's Q and A either anonymously or by writing no stage when you submit your question, and I'll be happy to ask that on your behalf. Keeping in mind that our focus here at Tech talk is on our technology and our delivery work.

So we'll answer questions wherever we can, noting that there may be times we need to take a question offline to consult with other areas in the department. That's to make sure we're giving you the right answer. Or to make sure that information is cleared to be publicly shared. Also a reminder that our media team can help with any media inquiries. You can contact the team at news at health.gov.au

We're pleased to see your interest in our work and we thank you for joining us today.
And one last bit of housekeeping, as you can see, we've now made the move from Webex over to Microsoft Teams as our webinar platform. You might already know teams, but I'll point out in particular that Q and A now has its own separate space and behaves a little differently to the Webex that you may be used to. It won't show up automatically when your session opens, so you'll now need to click the Q and A button at the top of your window to post your question and to see questions from others.

So please go ahead, feel free and click on the Q and A button now. Hopefully it's there visible at the top of the window. If not, you might need to click on the three dots to show more options depending on your screen size. So once you've clicked to open the Q and A panel, you'll see a message there from us that lets you know that you're in the right place. And that's all there is to it. Really. If you already have a question in mind, go ahead and type it in now.

We'll also post some handy links there for you throughout the session.

You might be quite familiar with teams already, but if you're not, don't worry, we're learning right along with you. And as we get more confident with teams, we're planning to explore some of its other features in future tech talks, so stay tuned for some in session polls.

Now let's look at today's agenda. So we usually have, as always, a full agenda, and it's especially true today.

Rest assured that we have an agenda item set aside with plenty of time for your questions, and we'll work hard to keep to time today as well. As always Fay will be first up and she will be talking about digital transformation. From there Greg Pugh, our business colleague from the Reform Implementation Division, returns to give us a programme update. And Greg, I believe this is back-to-back appearances for you. So welcome back.  Lezah Rushton from there, our business colleague from the assessment and Home Care Transition branch is here to talk to us about policy progress on the support at home programme. Lezah, welcome back to you also.

Then we'll hear from Emma Cook.

Another business colleague who is also a regular here at tech talk with us with the latest on the business to government programme or B2G. And Emma, it feels like a while since we've done one of these, it's great to see you and we're looking forward to your presentation today. So that's today's lineup. We have a lot to get through, but can I just say we are really pleased to have so many of our policy colleagues with us today to talk about the policy intent that underpins all of the work we are doing to develop digital solutions for the aged care sector.

And we know that you're fully engaged with all sorts of engagement activities. So thanks for making the time to be here with us today as well.

So without any further ado, it's my pleasure to introduce your host for today, Fay Flevaras. Fay leads the department's digital transformation work for aged care, now as the newly appointed chief Digital Information Officer for the Department, Fay brings her extensive experience in leading transformational change to the delivery of digital solutions to enable aged care reform.

And Fay, I'll hand it over to you whenever you're ready.

Fay Flevaras

Oh, thanks, Matt. Really appreciate it and thanks for stepping in at the last minute for us for Janine. Lovely to have you here with us. So hi everyone. We have a full agenda today, so I'll jump straight into it and to start, I'll just share some news around how the department is changing the way it operates digitally.

You're looking at a high level view about newly introduced structural arrangements. I'll just get next slide please.

In recent times, the department has been increasingly focused and invested in digital transformation capability and not just in aged care but across the department, the broader health portfolio. So with that in mind, we've looked at how we structure ourselves and considered what we needed to do internally to take our delivery capability to the next level. And in agreement with the Secretary and the broader deputy secretaries historically, our department has been split in two IT capabilities, with distinct divisions doing different, slightly different work. The IT division responsible for overseeing the department's internal and non aged care IT responsibilities, and then there was the digital transformation and delivery division responsible for the aged care, digital transformation and reform. So both of these divisions reported directly to the Chief Operating Officer.

And going forward, these two divisions that will now report to the chief Digital Information Officer This change aims to recognise the increased importance of digital and ICT solutions in delivering on the department's outcomes. And so with that in mind, the senior leadership made the decision to introduce the CDIO role that will report into the Chief Operating Officer.

This strengthens our ability to manage growing demand and investment and align
digital kind of first world that we live in at the moment, and centre all the departmental digital programmes under the same vision. So what will change for age care transformation? Not much. We are still committed to delivering a better connected person centred system but with increased collaboration and empowerment we can make sure that there is a better digital driven solutions across the health ecosystem as aged care does not exist isolated from the rest of healthcare and it's important that we don't treat it as such.

So we've already tried in the past to ensure that we create a one government view and this will just help to emphasise that. Now I know this information is primarily about internal housekeeping and you go well, why am I mentioning it here. Not specifically about digital transformation, but I wanted to share with you that what we're doing internally to mature our digital capabilities as I know, many of you are on these same types of digital maturity journeys as well in your own organisations.

So it might become handy to have a look at what we're doing internally to structure ourselves. So I think it speaks to how important digital is in terms of driving organisational outcomes at all levels. So I'll wind up by saying that I've been asked to act in the CDIO role as we set up the new structure going forward and the role is advertised more broadly and Brian Schumacher will step into the shoes of the first Assistant secretary for the digital transformation and Delivery division.

And in that capacity between the two of us will continue to continue to be the digital leaders along with our counterparts in the business around the age care transformation work. So hopefully that gives you a bit of an insight on how we continue to evolve and mature to support the agenda.

So moving on to our aged care IT portfolio road map, this is a forecast of the work on our current plan. So I shared this with my usual disclaimer. This is our technical delivery road map. The ICT digital piece, what you see here is our digital delivery plan.

It is important to note the timeline supports the age care reform agenda, but it should not be considered an official commitment from the government. That happens elsewhere outside of these tech talks, usually through ministerial announcements or other formal mechanisms. As I say, every tech talk we make a point of sharing this road map early and often to be transparent and open with you about the work we're doing and how we are planning for it. 

But sometimes things change and policy decisions will evolve and priorities might shift. And when that happens, we'll call it out here so you know about it. So since we last met, we had a very successful release of the manage your organisation tile in GPMS on Monday the 30th of September. The teams worked very hard to deliver this one and it was great to see the hard work pay off.

The Manage your organisation tile enables aged care providers To submit digital forms to the department and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, including forms such as maintaining or maintenance of your organisation and personal information, and your regulatory reporting for determinations and notifications. This gives providers more efficient, streamlined processes and also increases the accuracy of the data that is collected.

All good things in removing red tape from the reporting process.

Since the release, we've had a really significant uptake of the service with a large number of forms already sent through to the Commission. You can find more information on the department's GPMS resource page, including the training videos to assist you with navigating the new function in the system.

Also, the October to December delivery window is well underway. We've covered a lot of the detail on the October release in our last webinar, so I won't repeat those ones in too much detail. But I would like to highlight some additional changes from the information we've previously provided. We are also making some minor enhancements to the star ratings capability, the ANACC Referral Management and Assessments pieces, we're doing some core changes on the GPMS platform enhancements, there's reporting for 24x7 registered nursing has some changes, as well as a number of enhancements in the my age care portal. So I guess watch that space as we continue to you know, update what's happening for the rest of the year.

We've also been working really hard to specify the design Development of the ICT systems to support the new Age Care Act and Support at Home, and we're putting the final touches on an ICT road map to reflect the final policy announcements that were made on September 12th. Today, I'm pleased to share with you some high level milestones we're working towards between now and the 1st of July. As you can see, we're planning to release three times between now and the 1st of July 2025.

Actually twice between now and the 1st of July, and then one just after in October. And you can see there are three major releases associated with designing, building and testing for those three releases. So that's pretty much the release windows that we'll be using to get ready for the new Aged Care Act and support at home. I'd like to take a moment to explain to you what happens across these phases. So internally we call the model that we used 3CS model where we co-create co-design and co-deliver it together.

And we make sure that we embed collaboration into our all the delivery stages as we move along working with you guys in the sector. So when we start we Co create in that stage which is all about discovering and exploring the problem. We say problem but it's more about what we're trying to achieve, getting a bit deeper understanding of what the challenges we're trying to solve and the requirements of the end users using the solutions. We then move to co-design stage where we explore solutions and test and iterate making sure we're building the right thing. And we do that in the knowledge that we've got a certain amount of time to get it all done with, and so what can we achieve together in that time frame.  And lastly, we then move on to co-deliver, which includes our build and test stages, which is about building the thing correctly and right. So all of those co-activities I just mentioned are collaborations between us and Business counterparts, but importantly also involves all of you in the  sector working with us. For instance, with our Sector partners, co-design community and group. And as we decide and design things and build things, we share it here in the tech talk with all those for information purposes. If you'd like to get involved in some of the co- design activities though, please consider applying to become a sector partner member. Hopefully the team is sharing a link now with info and the group on the group on how to join. If you're interested, please take a look.I just wanted to highlight those targeted release dates to you again though. As with the digital transformation road map, this is a current state view and things might change.

 If I can just get to the next slide please.

We wanted to give you early visibility of the expected work ahead, a bit of a working timeline. Again, this timeline is not a government commitment, this is how we're structuring the work so that we can deliver on all the things that we need  to support all of the initiatives. So we're working on specific details of what is included in each one of these releases as we speak, working with our counterparts in the business to decide what parts go where and how much of it will be digitally enabled in the first instance and what might come post the 1st of June date. This is happening across the board and as soon as we know more, we will start to provide that picture to you to form it more clearly.

And we will bring you more specific details in our next webinar or if you're one of our sector partners, you will see that in the next sector partner that catch up.

So with that, I'll keep things moving and hand it over to Greg Pugh. He's our first assistant secretary to the Reform Implementation Division in the Ageing and Aged Care Group, and we've had some exciting announcements in our last tech talk and it's great to have you here to talk us through a little bit more of the detail in what's happening in aged care reform and some of the work that we're all trying to cater for in those releases that I just talked about. So thanks, Greg, over to you.

Greg Pugh

I will try and be relatively brief just to make sure we've got enough time for Q and A at the end, and I'm sure a lot of people in this forum are well aware of the recent government announcements. I've tried to go back over them in in a considerably amount of detail, but I did just first want to take stock.

Around some of the achievements that have come through aged care reform over the last couple of years, because I think as we continue on that implementation pathway to one July 2025, it's really worth sort of looking back at what policy changes and digital changes alike have been achieved since the handing down of the Royal Commission final report, so probably just some of the highlights that I wanted to mention.

This includes things like. Obviously, last night, a couple of weeks ago we had the new Age Care Bill introduced. We had support at home announcing the task force response announced. So going to a little bit more of that in a second. But just to recap, to recap on some of the other major reform achievements in this in this term of government, there's been over $15 billion in additional funding to deliver wage increases for aged care workers. Had nearly a 60% increase in the care component of residential aged care funding since October 2022.

We have aged care residents that are now receiving 3.9 million minutes more direct care funding, more direct care time every day. And almost all of our aged care homes now have a registered nurse on duty 24 hours a day. And that's all that was obviously one of the government's key electoral commitments as well. Moving on from there, we've got about 20% of folks who, of age go homes, so are now receiving an overall star rating of either four or five. Almost 60% of aged care homes are now rated as good or excellent, and we've got nearly 9000 volunteers who are visiting over 10,000 aged care volunteer visitors scheme recipients in the last calendar year alone.  So there is not raise these points that it's really important to reflect on why we're here and that that mission that we have in the ageing aged care group and within federal government around improving aged care for older people with their families and their carers. So just back on the new age care bill, support at home in the task force, I know that many of you will have tuned into a number of the Support at Home Task force webinars in the Q and A sessions that have been run over the last couple of weeks.

And of course, we'll hear from Lezah and a couple of others a little bit later on in this session. But I do just want to reiterate that that anyone spent around Support at Home and responding to the Aged Care Task Force and long-awaited introduction of the new Aged Care Act into Parliament on the 4th of September. That was a culmination of many months of sensitive negotiations and having all of that made public is a fantastic achievement for government. Just in terms of process. The bill has already been referred to the Senate Committee for the Community Affairs for inquiry, so public submissions are now closed.

But we do have is a considerable schedule of upcoming public hearings and they're outlined on the on the slide in front of you, I think. So we had a couple at the back end of last week, there was the one on Thursday, the 3rd of October that departmental reps attended.

As well as the Inspector General for Aged Care, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.

By ACCPA and a couple of others. And then we have one in Devonport on Friday, and then looking forward, we've got one in Brisbane on the 11th of October. Port Lincoln in South Australia on the 14th of October. We've got one in Newcastle on the 16th of October, Melbourne on the 17th of October, Perth, on the 18th of October and then Darwin to round us out on the 24th of October.

And the culmination of all of those public hearings will have a final report back from that committee, the Senate committee into Parliament by the 31st of October. So I was obviously going to be a very busy month, both in terms of those hearings and the Senate Committee Reporting Pack. And look for those of you who have tuned in or who are who are going along to any of those road shows. I think the common themes are emerging are not that surprising. So it's consistent with what we've been hearing from the sector.

Consider what we've been hearing through the exposure draught process and the like, and they include things like making sure that we're helping to support transition for clients and providers alike, and also ensuring that we're giving the sector and older people and consumers and the sector in general, that level of specificity that's needed to help work through implementation.

So on implementation. We acknowledge that there's a big implementation task ahead of us. It's a very short runaway, sorry between now and one July 2025. But that announcement about a month ago now, really helps us to finalise the micro policy details, and also the digital requirements that will help under underpin the support at home programme and implementation of the new Age Care Act.

At as you saw in phase section just before mine, we're putting the final touches on that digital transformation or ICT road map, to reflect the final policy announcements around the act and support at home. And we aim to have the digital specifications to support sector adoption and interface with the new programmes released later this year. And in addition, just to reiterate what Fay had said as well we'll be progressively releasing a schedule of sector engagement activities in the coming weeks, and we'll provide updates to this group and to our sector partners as well. So I'd probably leave it there and hand back over.

Thank you.

Fay Flevaras

Thanks Greg.

Yeah, when you summarise it like that, that's pretty amazing how much we've already accomplished over the last three years. I'd also like to take an opportunity to thank everyone for the hard work that's been put in to get us to these foundations where we are today and hopefully set ourselves up for success for the next kind of couple of years worth of work that we have ahead of us.

OK, so Greg's hanging around. And so please put your questions in the Q and A for a little bit later on. So looking forward to that and now it's a welcome back from Lezah Rushton from our assessment and home Care Transition branch, who's here to talk to us about a bit more detail around support at home. And I know this has been a keenly anticipated topic area for a while, so we welcome.

Addition to our recent support at Home Info Pack that we shared publicly by the department. So over to you, Lezah.

Lezah Rushton

Thank you, Faye. So hello everybody. So as Fay mentioned Lezah Rushton, I'm the assistant secretary for assessment and home Care transition branch. So very happy to be with you today. I'm going to give you an update on the support at home programme with a particular focus on the areas of most change for assessors, service providers and their ICT systems. As Greg mentioned over the last two weeks, the department has run a number of supported home specific webinars and Q and A sessions.

So I'm not going to cover that content in a great deal in great detail this session. I'll focus on digital enablement considerations for supported home providers and assessors. If you missed any of the previous webinar events, they have been recorded and are available on our website. And I think there's going to be a link at the end of this session that you can use to get onto those. So next slide please.

I'll start by providing a brief, brief overview. Brief overview of supported home programme and recapping some of the key elements covered in the departments previous sessions.

Then I'll talk to the key areas of things that service providers will need to understand to prepare their systems to operate under supported home. I'll touch on the structure of supported home programme, Single Assessment System, service referrals, the supported home funding model and how payment arrangements will work.

Many Department of Health and aged care systems will be enhanced to enable support at home to commence on 1 July 2025. This includes refinement of the integrated assessment tool, the IAT, and a number of other tools and materials on the my age care gateway. Over the coming months, the support at home transition and implementation readiness team will progress a range of stakeholder engagements to support service providers to be ready to operate under Support at Home. This will also include supporting items, sorry, supporting them with transitioning existing home care package recipients and short term restorative care clients to support at home.

Supported home will provide more effective in home age care to support older people, to stay independent at home for longer. There will be faster access to funding for services with a target wait time of three months from assessment to services from July 2027. There will be improved access to early interventions such as home modifications, assistive technology and short term allied health services, to keep people independent.  And when needs become complex, there will be more support available through a higher maximum budget for an end of life classification. Other key elements of support at home include a single provider model, new classification levels to better meet a person's age care needs, and a new service list with efficient prices and participant contributions set by government.

Support at home will provide a single programme for in home age care, bringing together home care package programme and short term restorative care programme from 1 July 2025. The Commonwealth Home Support Programme is planned to join support at home no earlier than July 2027.

Support at home will initially operate as a single service provider model from July 2025, moving to a multi provider model when CHSP joins our support at home. A single provider will be required to provide care management services for participants and may operate subcontracting arrangements to provide coverage for a range of services they choose to deliver.

The assessments for support at home will be done using the integrated assessment tool. The IAT is used to collect information from participants to determine their age care needs and services. From July 2025, a number of IAT enhancements will be released. These include changes to participants, eligibility, determination, which will be determined by triage delegate in the assessment organisation.

There will be changes to legislative references and a terminology change for assessment types. The current terminology of home support assessment will be replaced by simple assessment, and the complex assessment terminology will be replaced by complex, sorry, the comprehensive assessment terminology will be replaced by complex assessment. There will be new consent scripts for triage, aged care assessment, referral for services and upload of a participants support plan to their my health record.  From July 2025 a delegate approval will be required for CHSP recommendations. This will be a non clinical delegate role. From July 2025 the IAT will start to use the Support at Home classification algorithm. Assessors may override the algorithm recommended classification but must provide justification
details to assist the delegate in their final decision.

The assessed classification will determine the participants quarterly budget. Support at Home will have 8 classifications and two short term pathways to assist those who may need additional supports. There will be a new Assistive Technology and Home Modification scheme which will provide eligible participants under Support at Home upfront access to products, equipment and home modifications that will help them to live at home independently for longer.

The Restorative Care Pathway will focus on early intervention and prevention to restore function, supporting participants to remain independent at home for longer through coordinated allied health services.

The End of Life pathway is for participants who have been diagnosed with three months or less to live and wish to remain at home by providing an increased level of services available.

There's more detail on all of the items that I've just covered in the supported Home Handbook, which was published on the department's website last Thursday and again, we'll provide you a link to get there.

If you would like further deep dive into particularly assistive technology in the home modifications, we can probably put this into a future Tech Talk session for you.

Support at home will have a detailed service list for all in home aged care, as summarised at a high level on this slide. The service list will specify the services that may be accessed through the programme.

There are three service categories, each with their own service types, services and consumer contribution arrangements. These categories include clinical services like nursing support, allied health, nutrition and care management. Independent services like personal care, community engagement, respite and transport.

Everyday living services like meals, home maintenance and other domestic supports.
The service list will be accompanied by price caps set by government, based on advice from the independent health and Aged Care Pricing Authority.

This means providers cannot charge more than the set prices for the services on the list. Service providers offering services not on the list would need to do so through private arrangement with their clients, and they may not be subsidised, and they will not be subsidised by the government.

A participant approved for support at home will receive a notice of decision with an individual support plan to share with their supported home service provider.
The support plan will contain a summary of their aged care needs and goals, a list of all services they are proved to access under support at home.

Their ongoing quarterly budget, based on their assessed classification. And if determined by their needs assessment it will also include approval for short term supports, which may include a budget for assistive technology and home and or home modifications, restorative care pathway or end of life pathway.

One of the changes under the new Age Care Act is that the assessor needs to approve access to individual services at the point of assessment. This is necessary to make constitutional requirements and is different from the way home care package programme operates. Assessors will have the option with the consent of the participant, to upload an individual's support plan to their my health record. Once this functionality is released and that's expected to be towards the end of this month.

The new budget planner is being developed to be hosted on the My Age Care gateway. This will provide both an externally facing version and a link for an assessor through the integrated assessment tool. At the time of the needs assessment, assessors can work with the participant and their supported home service mix and indicative service pricing against the participants' quarterly budget.

Before finalising recommendations, the assessor will be able to search, add and remove services in the calculator. And see cost breakdowns for each service. Following the delegate assessment, approval and finalisation of the support plan, the department sends care approval information to services Australia to enable future claims processing.

This slide shows the data elements that we are expecting will be provided to services Australia. Services Australia will reconcile individual support plan data with the support of Home service list and pricing reference data held within their claims processing and payment systems.

Under supported home providers are required to submit details of new participants entering a service agreement to services Australia within 28 days of accepting service provision. Service providers are required to submit details of the exiting participants to services Australia within 28 days of the participant opting to exit the service provider.

Exiting existing home care packages and short term restorative care participants will be transitioned to support at home, quarterly budgets and services through transition deeming arrangements.

The department will be working with service providers to manage this transition and establish the enabling data across the department's services Australia and provider systems.

This slide shows the funding model for support at home. On the left hand side are the sources of funds for service providers. The first funding source is the various client budgets. Service providers will plan for services and supports delivered against participant budgets. These may include individual budgets that may be for ongoing services, a restorative care pathway, end of life pathway or assistive technology, and home care modifications.

The second source of funding is the Care Management Fund that sits with providers.
The third funding source is any unspent home care package funds held on behalf of a grandfathered home care package recipient.

All services delivered against the first three funding sources will need to be invoiced or claimed at unit prices for each service delivered, or for things like assistive technology at the cost of the item.

Prices will have to be at or below price caps set by government based on the advice of the independent health and Aged Care Pricing Authority.

The 4th funding source is participant contributions. More details on participant contributions is published in the Supported Home Handbook, so if you're looking for more details on that, please refer to have a look there.

As I covered earlier, supported home classifications determine the participants quarterly budget. The needs assessment may also recommend referral to existing CHSP programme, which will continue to operate as a grants based model.

Under supported home budget classifications, service providers will claim for services after they have been delivered, based on the payment in arrears model. Service providers can only claim for services under the improved service groups and service types in the participants notice of decision, and only claim for services up to the government set price caps.

Service providers are required to submit an itemised claim for ongoing services delivered to the participant in the quarter, and they must be claimed against the participants budget for that quarter. Service providers can submit claims up to daily or as batched claims for payment will need to specify by client how many units of service were delivered at what price. Service providers will have a minimum of 60 days to finalise claims for the previous quarter. Participants can carry over an amount of unspent funds to the next quarter, so service providers will need to ensure all claims for the quarter are submitted within 60 days to enable reconciliation of unspent funds for the participant to access.

It is not until the last invoice, after the end of the quarter is submitted that a participant can confirm what savings they may carry over to the next quarter. Claims process will use the existing Services Australia channels available to home Care Package providers today.

So this slide shows some of the data elements that we're expecting will be provided to services Australia to enable claims processing. Services Australia aim to process claims within seven calendar days of receipt of the claim. Claims processing will be a priority task for Services Australia payments would general generally be distributed the day after processing, noting that there may be some delay in providers, bank institutions as well.

There'll be some automated cheques on invoices submitted, such as whether the service is on the service list, the price is below the price cap and the provider is registered and so on.

We'll be providing further details to software vendors and service providers about the specifics for submitting claims and upgrading their systems that integrate with Services Australia payment systems.

Service providers must provide a monthly statement to the participant which reflects services delivered in a calendar month, irrespective of the claiming frequency. This slide shows some of the data elements that might contribute to the monthly statement. Monthly statements should at a minimum also include the opening balance of the quarterly budget and accrued funds budget. An itemised list of care and services which have been charged to the participant for with corresponding prices. The closing balance of the quarterly budget and accrued funds budget. And participant contributions that have been paid or are payable for that month, including any outstanding from the previous months.

Where a participant chooses to change service providers, they will be entry and exit rules and guidance to follow.

The losing service provider has 28 days from the cessation date when new service provider entry notification, whichever comes earlier to notify Services Australia, the participant is leaving and complete information sharing obligations with the gaining service provider.

The losing service provider must share information regarding account balances and services delivered with the gaining service provider. If the losing or gaining service providers do not complete their information sharing obligations, the losing service provider will face compliance action from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner. Once the losing service provider finalises their claims for the individual, a final monthly statement must be issued to the individual and gaining service provider. The gaining service provider will know at least 61 days after the cessation date of the final budget balance from sorry, start again. The gaining service provider will know at least 61 days after cessation date of the final budget balance from Services Australia. Programme guidance will outline what the individual may do to encourage provider communication. So in summary, the end state vision for Support at Home is a simple to navigate single programme for in home age care.

Which will help older people remain independent in their home and community for longer. To achieve this, the programme has been designed with the features we have worked through today. The funding model for payment in arrears, efficient prices set by government quarterly budgets aligned to aged care needs, ability to accrue unspent funds and access to more flexible short term supports.

There's a range of topics that I've touched on very briefly today and that you might like to do a further deep dive in future sessions. There's a list of them there on the screen, so I'm happy to take your lead through either the Q&A session or feedback after this session about further topics that you might like me to come back and have a talk to. So thanks for your time today.

Fay Flevaras

Thanks Lezah. And before we move on from this slide, on screen are the links to that handbook that you spoke about and other information that's been recently made available from the department. And so we'll pause for you to guys to grab a bit of a photo of that if you want or to grab those links if you haven't already got them. We'll also share the links to you via an e-mail post the event as well. So thank you. There was a lot of information there, Lezah. I think it's the beginning of a lot more to come. I think so. Yeah. Looking forward to Q and A in a little bit. So alright, moving on, we've now going to bring Emma Cook with us from the Digital Reform branch to talk a bit about Business to Government gateway, which is really important capability for software industry for us to connect. I'm particularly looking forward to listening to some of the findings that Emma has come to talk to us about.

And so Emma, over to you.

Emma Cook

Thanks very much Fay and thank you to everyone for your time today and letting me share a little bit of our news and in recent work in relation to B2G. So for many members of the audience, this will be an update on all of the progress that we've made and built on to date. But for those of you who are newer to our tech talk audience, I'll take a little step back to begin with and give you some context around Business to Government or B2G as we know it.

So government invested in business to government In direct response to the recommendations that the Royal Commission. Business to Government, as Fay said is really crucial and a crucial innovation that provides potential to streamline reporting, meaning that there's more seamless data exchange between provider and government systems, improve data quality. As a result, the timeliness, the reliability, the granularity of information because people aren't having to manually key it in and duplicate any keying. And providing that information then in a way that can support the delivery of quality care as well as this efficient technology that also enables aged care staff to spend more time delivering direct quality care to older people, which is something that we're all united in.

So in tangible terms Business to Government or B2G enables that direct reporting from an aged care provider's software system. It can seamlessly collate that information and then with more of an approval or a click of a button potentially, then transfer the information to government when reporting or submission of data is due, rather than any longer sort of process that may be followed at present. Through an initial beta, we've established the primary infrastructure that's required to support Business to Government.

So through that previous investment the government made, we stood up the software developer portal that enables aged care providers and software vendors to discover information about Business to Government, register their organisations and start to understand what requirements need to be met in order to connect.

It provides API testing functionality which enables then those software vendors to build their software systems and connect them to our test environment and see whether they've then met the specifications that they've learned about. And importantly with partnership from the Australian Digital Health Agency, we've rolled out the conformance framework that then ultimately assesses that those software systems and APIs do meet the requirements to connect with government systems and enable further roll out of B2G.

So how are we doing this? Jumping through to the next slide.

As part of that further roll out and expansion, government has committed to the delivery of up to five more APIs by mid 2026. So to identify, prioritise and progress these API initiatives that crucially not only benefit our aged care providers, but the quality of care that they deliver to older Australians, we're following this four stage process that you can see on the slide.

Now this includes research which is the stage that we've been through looking at established frameworks for API selection, conducting surveys, which many Tech Talk participants have responded to.

So a big thank you to the overwhelming response we had on that front in engagement through our sector partners to deliver us consolidated insights that help us not only to understand potential API candidates, but really to better understand sector needs also.

Now I'll jump into the findings of the of that phase in a moment. But first I'll continue through which is the second stage of assessment and consultation, something that we have also nearly concluded.

And that has been that really in depth process of human centred design in workshops with volunteer aged care providers and software vendors from our sector partner community which continued over a period of five weeks. And that has really given us a great depth of information not only to select those APIs but smooth their implementation pathway as well once they are selected.

Following that we are doing working closely with the Digital Technology and Delivery divisions within the department to understand technical considerations and to rank those APIs based both on the technical aspects in the impacts and things that we're considering in that front are in direct response also to our provider feedback which is around the stability of APIs we want to make sure that when we when we roll out B2G and when we roll out APIs that we're doing it in an enabling sense for now, but something that is also enduring when people have made the commitment to work towards those with us.

And finally, we'll be looking at implementation.

So following ministerial endorsement of our suggested APIs and API candidates will progress an implementation pathway in all of the steps that we know are required to give prior notice and specification documents to support software vendors in their sector to uptake our APIs.

So jumping through into the findings of those first two stages. Really you can see on the screen we did our survey and we had a great response. And through this process. Really got a mixture of responses from residential in home care and software vendors.

The common themes that we saw was support for areas of provider reporting, so things like SERS, things like Care Minutes, things like Quarterly Financial Reporting which is really continuation of what we've seen to date with our current 24 x 7 and quality indicator APIs. Again hitting those areas that we know can take significant time for providers and is an efficiency that is generally really well supported.

Secondly, we've had support and care plans. So this has really gone to the heart of what we've heard a lot through our different mechanisms of surveys and consultation, which is a lot of support for any APIs or B2G initiatives that would enable Support at Home.

So support for those, not always with absolute certainty as to what they are because as Lezah spoke through the Support at Home programme is relatively new and a lot of information, but there is support for wherever we can find an opportunity to enable that. client assessment and referrals.

So again this is one that has been quite ongoing and a real opportunity to streamline information sharing around assessments, reassessments and referrals.

So jumping through to the next slide, which goes through our human centred design insights.

So largely there was support and I'll get to that in a moment. Support for what I've just run through by way of the specific APIs. But this process also highlighted a lot of support for almost our B2G API principles.

So there was huge support for the standardisation of data. And that's something that I've heard from a lot of different areas of the sector and of our stakeholder community.

And it's something that we're certainly working through in the context of the national minimum data set.

So data standardisation, two way data exchange which we know is true interoperability in the B2G should enable both submission of information but also servicing that information back to providers, support for streamlined access for providers.

And really that that concept of B2G being well supported, that there's a want for the confidence, or confidence in data protection. And we know that that is critical in this day and age and of course integration of B2G APIs to ensure these are both enabling and enduring as I said.

Now, building on this, there was also some advice around the prerequisites that would make the adoption of B 2 G successful. So this would really then help us on those later stages of the implementation pathway.

And that was around technical specifications and information being supplied in advance as we have done and will continue to do through our software developer portal resources and capability supports.

And I know we have a number of initiatives as well as specific groups that are engaging with the sector and with our aged care providers around what supports are needed to continue to uplift the digital maturity of the sector.

Again in the way that that Fay has spoken about earlier on in this tech talk. And as well as early access to information, including through the co design of roadmaps and in strategic planning and priorities.

So again something for us to take on board and really make sure we're feeding in through those committees and groups including our sector partner community.

Jumping through to what is our final slide on these findings.

And the consultation really did provide support and specificity around the potential API candidates.

And so this was a continuation of the themes that I mentioned earlier, continued support for client management, things like assessment and referral information and requests, high frequency reports, things like SERS, the maintenance of administrative information and things like places as well as anything that is required to enable the new Support at Home programme.

And finally, regulatory reporting. As I said, building on those current APIs and extending into areas such as Quarterly Financial Reporting being the QFR and Care Minutes.

And so that is it as it stands.

And that is the really short summary of what has been months and months of work in close collaboration with our sector partners with our stakeholders.

And through those, those written channels of surveys through the regular forums that we have been presenting to in co-designing with.

As well as that intensive human centred design process that we really sincerely thank everyone for being a part of who gave us that time and valuable insight from here. As I said, there will be the technical assessments to ensure that we've taken on those principles that the sector has given us.

And I'm really keen and looking forward to reverting to this group in providing the outcomes of those further assessments prior to implementation in in finalising the selection process. To help shape this process in these final stages.

I'd really continue to welcome you to join the sector partner community that we draw on for all of this and to work with us as well as to learn more about B2G please go to the links on the screen, in particular the developer portal. Have a look around, discover and register your organisation to start to mature with us on this. This journey of B2G and interoperability.

Thanks Fay.

Fay Flevaras

Thanks, Emma.

Yes, it's really exciting. I think we're kind of running a few different races at the same time.

So we've got, you know, new legislation changes. We're updating our portal to always make sure that there is an answer out there for everyone to be able to use. And then we're also doing B2G so that we can enable the software industry to connect so that we can get more efficient.

So we're trying to pitch at a few different digital solutions at the same time.

I'm really looking forward to continuing this one, so thank you very much.

So now moving on to, I think Q and A, I think we're up to Q and A. Is that right, Matt?

Matt Kenny

We sure are, Fay. Yeah.

Fay Flevaras

Excellent have a thumbs up.

So I hope, hopefully you've been jotting down your questions in the Q and A as you've been listening to all the presentations. Likewise, if you've got any other questions you've been saving up since our last tech talk, make sure you put them on.

And I think what we'll do now is probably we're going to take the slides down and bring up a couple of people to the panel, our presenters and then Matt over to you to moderate us through which questions we're going to go with first.

Matt Kenny

Thanks so much, Fay. Yeah, we are all set, and we've got a healthy stack of questions already so we're going to get through as many as we can.

If you do still have a question though, please, it's not too late to get yours in. So keep them on coming. And for today's panel, as always, Fay will be staying here with us and we're welcoming back Greg, Lezeh and Emma back to the stage as well.

We have some subject matter experts here with us in the wings as well. They're ready to jump in as needed, so plenty of expertise in the room.

And I'll start us off with an anonymous question, and this one is related to the GPMS manage your organisation tile.

In fact, we've received a stack of questions on this topic. So Emma, if you're up for that, we'll, share a few your way one after the other.

From there, what we will ask is that as we call you up, anyone who's willing to ask a question on stage, if you could please raise your hand in the in the team session to help us to identify you. That would be most helpful.

So Emma away we go, first one is for you.

Peter has asked 'we find the key personnel reporting through GPMS manage your organisation tile out of date and incorrect when notifications to AP notifications at aged care quality have not been correctly processed'. Can you give an update on this one?

Emma Cook

Thanks Matt. 

Look, firstly I'd say for any sort of broad questions, I'll help where I can, but also definitely the service provider and assessor helpline is the place to go for immediate and Technical Support when it comes to GPMS.

In terms of if you're looking at your key personnel, they don't look like they're reflecting something that has recently been submitted.

Probably the easiest path is to contact the Aged Care Quality Safety Commission, which is that e-mail address that's an Aged Care Quality Safety Commission address, and confirm the receipt of that submission.

If it has been submitted very recently, then I'd suggest that you may want to wait a week or two because there will be a processing time for that to be reflected and updated into the GPMS portal.

And this is the process of us starting to launch this new functionality.

So moving forward the great offering that this will provide is that once you've submitted, you'll be able to see that it's submitted, you'll be able to see that it's in processing and you'll be able to see that it comes back.

But in this early phase, it's best just to check with the aged Care Quality Safety Commission and if there's any issues, then you can you can submit notifications moving forward using our self-service capability on GPMS.

Matt Kenny

Thanks so much, Emma, and thank you, Peter, for the question.

Next one on the same topic.

'Has anyone else had issues with the new manage organisation tile? I gave users permission and they lost all other tiles, removed the new permissions and other tiles came back, have not logged it with support yet. Just thought I would ask while I'm thinking about it so a fairly specific one there.'

Emma Cook

Look I think this sounds a lot like a glitch that occurred on Thursday. So we launched it early last week, so on the Monday, and on Thursday late in the afternoon, there was a glitch that did impact users accessing that manager organisations tile.

It was resolved by Friday morning.

So moving forward, there shouldn't be any issues outstanding for your organisation or for any others. And if there are, I'd encourage you to call the service provider and assessor helpline.

Matt Kenny

Wonderful. Thanks so much. Oh.

Fay Flevaras

Yes, I'd. I'd like to add them, Matt, probably an apology. I've often said it a few times given the pace of change and what we do, I don't always promise defect free software, but if it does occur, we do promise to respond really quickly.

And so we appreciate everyone's patience when new functionality goes out and there might be a bit of an error, so as Emma said, we picked it up really quickly and turn it around.

So thanks everybody.

I'd encourage to try again, and if you've still got problems, please log a call with us and we'll get on to it really quickly.

Matt Kenny

Thank you Fay and Emma.  There's probably there might be other manage organisation questions down the list, but this is our third one for this block.

'What do we do if we can't see the manage organisation tile?'

Emma Cook

Firstly I'd encourage everyone who's seeking to access that to look at the resources that are available, we've got lots of help videos, lots of resources published on the GPMS website, and work within your organisation make sure that you have the user role that would enable access.

If you are just a user for something like QI, it may be that you don't. You don't have that access granted for your organisation,. So work within your organisation with your organisation administrators to make sure that you have the right level of access to provision that visibility of the tile.

If there's any further issues then the message remains the same which is reach out to that service provider and assessor helpline and we can take you from there and make sure that you have everything that you need to see that tile and make good use of our new functionality on GPMS.

Matt Kenny

Thank you so much, Emma.

OK, moving on and we've got a few questions queued up for B 2 G and I'll ask for Stefan and Abhishek, if you could please make yourselves known by raising your hand, that would be really helpful. In the meantime, we have a question for Greg from Emma Hossack, which I'll rattle off.

Greg apologies, I'm scrolling through to find these. There's quite a number. Do you have it there? I'll just.

Greg Pugh

Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, so.

Fay Flevaras

I've got it. I've got it so and we're happy to have, yeah.

Matt Kenny

You got it.

Greg Pugh

There are three questions happy to go through them and thanks for the questions, Emma. They're all really good ones. So question one, what is the total percent of residential homes with a four to five star rating, not just the 19% uplift.

So the last update for this was published on the 29th of July. At that point in time, there were 1616 homes that had an overall star rating of four or five stars.

Fay Flevaras

Yeah.

Greg Pugh

There are give or take at anyone time in 2617 at residential homes, so by my maths, which you should never go off, that equates to about 62% of homes that are reporting at four or five stars.

So we'll be giving you an update of those figures in the in November.

Second question, the Minister sent an open letter yesterday outlining her statement of expectations. Part of that indicated disappointment with the care minutes in the private sector. So not across this, not across the aged care sector as a whole, but specifically in meeting those targets within the private sector.

So the question here is how can industry, which has the tools to enable automation of non care activities, get engaged here?

Funding is not getting out openly to the tech industry in the general marketplace. Any ideas?

I think that's an excellent question. Good to see innovative thinking around how you can simplify those business processes. So thanks for that question.

Look at the moment we’re on record is saying there's no direct grant funding into the tech industry at this point in time. That may change, obviously government is going through my info and budget processes within the within the next sort of six to seven months. So there may be something that comes out of there.

There is a couple of existing sort of mechanisms that you might want to look into though.

One of them that springs to mind is some funding that's available through the Aged Care Research Innovation Australia, so or ARIIA.

So this organisation, government funded, it runs a thing called the Aged Care Partnering Programme.

Basically, if you think you can make a difference to aged care, they're always looking for innovative ideas that might make you eligible for the Aged Care Partnering Programme.

So if you were to work with a provider or a facility, you could reach out to ARIIA. I can put the link into the chat if that's helpful.

They will help providers tap into relevant research industry experts that will help them turn that idea into an actual project.

So if you've got links in with providers at the moment, you might want to talk to them to them about this. And look given care minutes for such a fundamental part of government's election commitments, one of the very important tools that we're rolling out to ensure that people are receiving the appropriate amount of care, You know you would have to think that that there would be a strong, strong degree of willingness to be able to explore any further sort of innovation or partnership in that area.

Third and final. Oh, I'm sorry. I might just say I think that may answer Jay McDonald's question that I just saw pop up, which is around providers and access to enabling technologies integrations and APIs as well. So Jane, if you want to look into the ARIIA
grant opportunity that I just mentioned that might be worthwhile as well.

Third question is.

'Where is the digital road map now? Can it be Co designed? Can't we see a draught now?' I mean, I think it is as we stated in my update and Fay's update and I think probably everyone mentioned it, it's just going through that final development piece.

Now that we've got those final decisions of government from the 12th of September to finalise internally. We'll bring it to this forum, sector partners, other forums and that'll be for comment and review as soon as practicable.

And I think that's it, Matt.

Matt Kenny

Thanks very much, Greg.

And I believe we might actually have Emma in the room with us from MSIA. Emma did. Are you able to pop your hand up or would you, would you like to make any, any comment on what's been said?

Fay Flevaras 

We’ve got her on the screen. I think at the moment. So over to you, Emma.

Maybe you need to come off mute because. I can still see you on mute.

Attendee

Do that now. OK. Thank you. You know, look, thanks so much, Greg.

There's just an awful lot of interest in industry getting to be part of this now because of the timelines and people are, they've got a lot of capability, which is actually demonstrated in a whole bunch of existing either trials or, you know, real life experiments. If you'd like to call them that.

They’re more than experiments, but they're resulting in things like, you know, 30% reduction of administrative tasks for registered nurses, which of course is great because they need to have more richness they need to have more time, care minutes and all of those things.

So all of those people are going, yeah, that's great.

It's working with my clients here.

But how do we leverage off that and show the government our capability, our capability?

And so thanks very much for that.

I'll certainly contact the aged care reserve. You know, innovation group that you're going put the link up to.

But the other query has been really strong and I'm not sure if I made it clearly enough in the last part of that question is where there has been an enormous amount of funding from the government to uplift the sector. There's been an issue perhaps with things not quite turning out the way certainly industry expected. So where it's modernisation. No additional software capabilities has been acquired despite the fact that it would have had the intended effect that you know that the Minister wanted with the five election promises.

So yeah, just kind of keen to know if that will change next time.

So where there's funding like incentives for GPs and all of the rest of it. You know, you've got to spend it on, you know, modernising your system, not just buying more internet or something like that, although that's in. Yeah, a useful one. It's good base. You need the other addons through technology to make that really strong change.

So that's all but thank you very much for your answer.

Greg Pugh

Thanks Emma. And look there. Yeah, they're excellent. They're excellent insights and absolutely things that we are considering in the lead up to one July next year. So thank you.

Fay Flevaras

Thanks, Emma. I'd also like to note that we have started to kick off a digital maturity assessment piece of research to understand where the industry and the sector's at around digital, and what do we need to do to look at being able to adopt and be ready.

That's not just for the legislation, but more at a digital maturity piece as well.

That it has been a recent sector partner design activity that went out.

And so for those that are active like yourself you can help contribute to that and so that we can provide some more information and insights internally to the department and to government. So thank you.

Attendee

Thank you.

Fay Flevaras

OK. Matt, over to you.

Matt Kenny

Thanks so much, Fay.

Our next couple of questions relate to business to government and I'm hoping that either Stephen or Abhishek and I, I hope I'm pronouncing that roughly correctly.

Do we have other one of you on stage with us?

If not, that's totally fine. What I might do is Abhishek I think I can see you there if you can remember to take yourself off mute, that'll be great.

Fay Flevaras

I will try.

Attendee

Yeah, I did try to take myself off mute. I'm not able to take myself off the camera.

Sorry. There's some problem with the teams, but thank you for accepting me.

Emma, my question is for you and more from a Department of Health point of view, trying to understand that the these different APIs that are being developed, how as an organisation we can leverage those APIs to go back to our clients more quickly.

And if they're on top of the question that Stephen had, that if we have certain APIs
that are listed, and it's easier for us to leverage from, for all for the purpose of different integrations and different places, where and we want to talk to our clients, or reach back to our clients more quickly with the developments, how would that work?

Attendee

Yeah. Thank you.

Emma Cook

Yeah, thank you. So I'll try and answer those and wrap them into the questions in the chat as well. So I think in terms of the APIs that are available, you've really heard it or, sorry. The APIs that are available, the place to go is the software developer portal.

That's where you'll see all the information, the specifications you'll be able to provide.

Well, work with us closely to develop the software as well as then provide those APIs that are already available around 24x 7 and QI to the clients quickly. In terms of then finding out about these current APIs that are being developed and in particular the commitment around the five additional. You really heard it here. First we work closely with the sector partners, we bring it to Tech Talk and then from there we start to roll out the information and provide that on our website with the two kind of QR links that we had up before.

So the places to go are the software developer portal and the Department of Health website.

But this this was the first time that we've shared the information about those five additional.

If you want to shape those, if you want to learn more about them and be engaged in that process, I would encourage you to be part of that sector partner community because that is the Community where we co-design these and where we work really closely to define them.

So that would be the place to go.

And then with respect to, I guess the questions that have been placed in the chat as well Around B 2 G, I think the additional place around the expected uptake for B 2 G, I think it's important to say this is definitely, It's starting with an offering. It's an innovation we have done a beta. We are expanding that offering and we are supporting this sector and the part of the sector that is coming on that digital maturity journey with us to access that more streamlined information sharing capability.

Now that is not walking away from the offerings and the reporting functionality that's also available through GPMS.

We know that providers are diverse.

We know they have different circumstances and diverse arrangements. And so to do that, we're trying to make the best possible experience irrespective of where you are on that maturity journey.

So we'll work and we'll continue to work in the expansion of B 2 G we'll make the information publicly available in these forums, on our website and in the software developer portal.

And we'll continue to uplift GPMS streamline that capability and make sure that for the providers who are continuing to meet their reporting requirements through the GPMS portal, that's as efficient and streamlined and runs off those same principles of data standardisation and collect once used many to the extent that that is possible as we as we continue along this road map.

Fay Flevaras

Emma, I know Steven or, Stefan, I might say that wrong, Lessing actually put into the Q and A the AP catalogue available here, folks. So if you have a look at your Q and A, you'll see it there and you can click on the link.

And there was actually two questions above that, Matt around.
you know, through ANACC changes there was a weekly user group for software developers. Will this still happen.

Again, we are actively working with Services Australia so that we can align all of the engagements up especially around APIs, so watch that space and we'll come back to you on that question.

I think as we get more detail and there was also one question around API, which I might just quickly answer, which was 'how will it be decided when APIs is are exposed through the new department APIs versus the existing services through services Australia APIs.

And, we might take that one away.

But in general, to bring you a picture back that is. But in general there are certain services that Services Australia does look after, namely the payment APIs and they will continue there.

And then there's you know, other APIs that are based on the platforms that we in the department look after.

I think we're in discussions with Services Australia and just to have them all available in one spot as a catalogue.

So you know where to go looking for them in that sense.

But again, that's a bit of a maturity curve and will be quite transparent as we progress the journeys of APIs across the portfolio.

So hopefully that gives you a little bit more info, but there's more info to come in future dates.

OK. Matt, over to you. Do we have one a question for Lezah, any Support at Home question.

Matt Kenny

Thank you. We we do indeed. We've got a number of questions for Lezah. I will call if we do have Steven, Barry and Angela, if you could please make yourselves known by raising your hand, we will come to your questions next.

But in the meantime, Lezah, I believe this one is for you. The question is, 'I believe CHSP providers will become registered providers from 1 July 2025 as per the new Age Care Act.

So far as I'm aware, we don't currently use GPMS. What's the road map for CHSP providers to roll into this system?

Lezah Rushton

Will come on to the new Age Care Act as registered providers from one July, so there will be some changes that we will pull into that programme as a result of that.

There's a range of administrative processes we're wrapping around the registration of providers, deeming and the like, to ensure that service continuity will continue for 
those older people who are consuming services both under CHSP but other ongoing Home Care Services as well.

Emma, did you want to add anything in terms of the GPMS interface and what might be envisaged for CHSP providers?

Emma Cook

Yeah. So I guess limited edition at this stage, but certainly the intent is consistent with what Lezah was saying around bringing in CHSP providers within that broader regulatory and legislative framework, is that you will see a similar alignment and availability of digital systems that extend to CHSP providers.

And that is the intent to, I guess bridge that gap that there currently is, and offer them a very similar experience to that offered to other service providers in in the aged care sector.

Matt Kenny

Wonderful. Thanks so much. And Lezah, it sounds like unfortunately we might have missed the first few seconds of your audio there.

Not sure if people were able to track along with that, but we'll press on and I suppose if that question didn't carry across, hopefully that questioner can pop their question in again and we can loop back to it.

But I'm hoping now that Stefan might be ready to come up on stage, do we have, Stefan, if you could just pop yourself off mute and you can ask away.

Attendee

As well, there we go. Yes. I just want to say thank you for those sort of forums. I find them really open and transparent and useful. My question is for Lezah, it's regarding the Home Care package situation. I've just come from the Stewart Brown Forum that was run in Sydney today, and a lot of providers are asking how will we get the sort of certainty we need operationally for things like case management fees that are calculated on resident packages. Is there going to be some sort of vision like we have for ANNAC where we get a forward estimate or some planning tools?

Because we can imagine these things going up and down and being quite lumpy. So is that sort of in the works that they're sort of operational things are coming because we sort of need more information to plan our workforce three months out or four months out just the same way we're planning out our IT.

Lezah Rushton

Look, thanks for the question, Stefan. There are a range of modelling activities that the department is doing across Support at Home, both on unit pricing for services, but also how that applies to the calculation of care management.

And we will be sharing that information with providers as we work through those transition activities.

We are currently in the process of putting together a detailed programme manual. We're doing that.in stages, so we'll do chapters around particular topics And we're focusing on those topics of greatest interests like care management and getting those out.

We do have a working group that we've been working with for a number of months that has provider organisations and consumer organisations on it. They will be ours. I guess our first testing ground of those more detailed programme guidelines. So we'll work through some of those sorts of things with that working group with a view of then distributing those more broadly.

So we will be progressively adding more material to the website. So keep an eye on the website, we'll send out alerts in the in the various communiques that go out around when we're adding additional information just in terms of that, the care management.

You know, just what I guess provide some clarity around that. The model around care management is really intended to give you give providers certainty to manage that fluctuation that happens over time in terms of the level of care management and individual client might need.

So the 10 per cent is 10 per cent of the allocated budget irrespective of the spending of the client over any particular quarter. So that 10 per cent for all of the clients that sit with that service provider goes into a pooled fund and sits with Services Australia to be drawn on.

And so that allows providers the flexibility that they may need to provide additional hours. You know maybe early in an engagement or after a particular sort of event occurs, unless hours at another point in time.

But holistically, that 10 per cent of the budget every quarter goes into that pool fund and stays with the provider. Obviously, it can't be invoiced against unless the services are provided, but the funds will sit, sit there for drawing against. So hopefully that covers the question.

Attendee

Excellent. Thank you very much. That focus on budget helps us all reduce our planning rather than worrying about actuals which would cause a bit of a mess. So thank you.

Matt Kenny

Yeah. Thank you so much for that. I'll just call again, it's to see if Angela might be still with us. Angela, if you're happy to ask your question and you'd be happy to raise your hand, we'll, we'll get to you as soon as we can. But hopefully we've got Barry on the stage with us now. Barry, can you hear us, fine.

Attendee

And hi all and thanks again to the panel for giving us transparency over this and maybe further congratulations to getting the bipartisan support for the legislation that's going through.

It's no small amount of effort to get there.

I'm interested in assistive technologies in terms of the is there a prescribed list of assistive technologies as a component of this, or is there more of a broader approach to being able to apply definition to that?

Lezah Rushton

Hi Barry, thanks for the question.

So yes, there will be a prescribed list around the assistive technology components. So there's the support at Home Services list and then there'll be a supplementary services list specific to the assistive technology and home modification services that will be available.

That service list is just being finalised and will be published again with the support of Home Service list that is already on the website very shortly.

Attendee

OK, great. Thanks.

Matt Kenny

Thank you, Barry. Thank you, Lezah. And I understand Angela is all set, Angela.
We'll bring you to stage, hopefully. And it's over to you.

Attendee

OK. Thanks so much. So two quick questions. Some of us aren't officially transitioning until July 2027 and we're just wondering how do we integrate into this new system when the rest of age care is moving along? So I think it was more the logistics of that. How will that function?

And then the second question was the idea of the single provider system. Just to get a bit of clarity on is that all current or deemed or deemed providers will be single providers and we misunderstanding that just a bit of clarity would be helpful. Thank you.

Lezah Rushton

So Angela, I might start with the second question first, if that's OK.

So in terms of existing home care package providers, yes, they will go through a deeming process to become registered providers.

We're just again working through the legislative logistics around how that would work. But the intent being that obviously providers that are providing particular services today would continue to provide those services from July 2025, and would be deemed within those particular categories to be able to provide those services.

And we've got a whole lot of data that we've been using to validate what that deeming and categorisation needs to be to support that continuity of service in terms of, and we will be working individually with providers around providing them notice of what we're deeming them in terms of the categories that they will have in the services that we provide to validate that. So they're well placed to know what those registrations look like well before July in terms of CHSSP.

So there are some changes that will occur to align to the new Age Care Act. Even though the programme will continue to operate largely the way it does today.

But in all the work we're doing around managing transition for support at home, CHSP is part of all of that, that planning work so we will provide alignment where we can, but also comms to manage those particular questions that CHSP providers will have about, you know, how's this going to work in my circumstance.

So there'll be a revised programme manual around CHSP as well, which will reflect any of those nuanced changes that need to happen to align with the new Age Care Act and the things that we would want to do post July 2025 to prepare those programmes to come into support at home as and when the government chooses to make that happen.

Attendee

Thank you.

Fay Flevaras

Thanks, Lezah. And just so for everyone, there's a lot going on as you can see and we thank everyone for their questions.

Any sort of digital elements, we will continue to bring here and also through to our sector partner community. We're all co design activities will happen for digital items and as soon as the information is you know published in different arenas as much as possible will cross promote just to make sure that everyone's getting the information, the information in a timely fashion.

So thanks for that.

I think, Matt, you want to close this out.

Matt Kenny

Yes, I'd be happy to, Fay. I think we are just about on time, so thank you panellists and thank you to all the standby's as well.

Great Q and A as always.

So that's a wrap for Tech Talk 19.

Thank you everyone so much for tuning in.

Please remember on your way out to take our very quick survey on ways we can improve and make these more useful. There's a QR code up there on the slide and we'll e-mail you a link to that survey as well.

Even if you've completed it before, it'd be great to hear your fresh take on how we're doing. We've had some fabulous suggestions already and we're keen to bring those to you as improvements for next year, so please do keep them coming. We'll make the recording available on the website within the next few weeks as soon as we can and we'll let you know once that's available.

Meantime, the other QR code you see up there gives you access to all of our previous webinars, so feel free to check those out and to share those to any resources, sorry to share those resources to any colleagues, coworkers, and so on. Until then, it's goodbye from me and Fay over to you to take us out.

Fay Flevaras

Thank you, Matt, and well done for hosting your first tech talk with me. You did an excellent job and we're closing the year out with our final tech talk #20. It'll be the last one for our for this year. Mark your calendars, it's Wednesday the 13th of November. I hope you can join us then as we reflect on our progress for the year and probably provide you a whole lot of extra information that we're gonna need. To be successful next year.

And so definitely on what the plans are for 2025, any agenda items or topic areas you'd like to see, please let us know or e-mail us or pop into the survey any, any channels fine and as always a reminder that this is an open forum, we love the diversity of views and opinions out we see at tech talk and all the insights you give us.

If you know others with an interest in this kind of topics that we cover here
lease share the link with them on the website or share it within your own networks and community. So that's it from us today until next time and thank you for your company and goodbye for now.

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