Living Longer, Living Better Reforms
Retirement village operators will be familiar with the increasing use of home care support by residents living in their villages. This is a direct result of the increasing age and frailty of the village resident cohort.
The Federal Government has introduced a series of reforms to home care funded packages under the Aged Care Act which will impact retirement village operators and potentially provide an opportunity in the future.
Home care packages are Government funded packages allocated to ‘approved providers’ under a planned regional allocation process under the Aged Care Act. The packages provide funding for services to home care recipients under an agreed plan. Residents co contribute to the services based on an income test. The approved provider effectively controls the administration and the budget associated with the delivery of home care to the ‘care recipient’.
From March 2017, the home care funding package regime will change so that:
1. allocated places for home care will cease to exist;
2. care recipients will be assessed to receive packages based on their needs and the time they applied for support – so the regional allocation ceases;
3. residents will be able to choose their ‘approved provider’ to administer their budget;
4. there will be greater flexibility as to the range of providers who may be able to assist or provide services; and
5. from June 2018, the bundle services known as Commonwealth Home Support Packages (formerly HACC – Home and Community Care Services) will be rolled into the home care regime.
Home care and CHSP services are essentially a broad range of services available for people living at home. The services include domiciliary support such as transport, meals, home maintenance to more clinical services such as wound management, medication management. The type of service depends upon the ‘needs’ of the individual.
Many of the types of services currently provided under these packages are in effect services that many retirement village operators provide, for example transport and domiciliary support.
From March 2017, the hurdle to become a ‘registered provider’ will be lowered. This lowering of the threshold coupled with the removal of the allocated places process, opens up the range of potential providers of services and removes the monopoly ‘approved providers’ currently hold through the packages.
For retirement village operators, this means they could be engaged in the delivery of ‘home care’ as a ‘registered provider’ in a number of ways:
1. administer a home care plan and budget for a resident:
2. deliver home care services as a brokered agent for a ‘registered provider’; or
3. be a registered provider for the purposes of delivery services directly to residents.
As the September 2015 report prepared by Alzheimer’s Australia with the Property Council of Australia showed, approximately 10% of the resident population in retirement villages are diagnosed as living with dementia and it is likely that will increase. The growing frailty and ageing of the population in retirement villages will invariably lead to greater demand for home care support (beyond simply general services) which is consistent with the Federal Government’s objectives of assisting people to live at home longer before needing to move to higher level residential aged care services.