Be aware a change is coming…
Australia’s aged population is forecasted for continued growth. Current estimates show this demographic (over 65 year olds) could grow from 3.7 million in 2016 to 8.7 million by 2056.* With the population in Melbourne alone likely to double over the next 25-30 years, the aged care sector is one that a lot of people have their eye on.
With such rapid growth comes changes to funding as well as various challenges along the way.
One such change to funding occurred in the 2016-2017 budget and resulted in changes to the Complex Health Care (CHC) domain of the Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI). These changes were designed to better align the highest funding levels towards the residents requiring the highest level of care.
Key changes
The ACFI changes have been implemented in two stages and have resulted in the following:
- Changes to the CHC scoring matrix for new appraisals or reappraisals of existing residents.
- Changes to scores and eligibility requirements for certain procedures when applying ACFI funding requirements.
What impact will this have?
Despite the announcement that ACFI funding will be cut by $1.2 billion over 4 years; the Government is targeting an overall increase in funding to the aged care sector of 5.1% over 5 years.
Aged Care providers should regularly engage an ACFI expert to review their procedures and ensure that their ACFI funding is maximised by making sure that eligible services are correctly allocated to funding categories.
Every year, Accru Melbourne benchmarks our clients in a number of categories so that each client can see where they sit when compared to the benchmark. Key measures across a number of categories can often highlight how efficient an aged care facility is operating when compared to similar size facilities in the same area. It’s also useful to see how your aged care facility has fared from year to year and see what effect implemented initiatives have had. This exercise is done as a part of the external audit and presented to management and the Board of Directors prior to the audit being signed off. We see this as a valuable exercise and can also elaborate on reasons why some facilities are able to achieve higher results.
If you would like to understand these changes in more detail or if you have any further queries we would love to hear from you! Contact our Audit Specialists today for more information, complete your details below or call 03 9835 8200.
