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My Aged Care Updates

November 15, 2018

My Aged Care Updates

To provide greater transparency and assist consumers to more easily compare different service offers, all providers will be required to publish current pricing information on My Aged Care by the end of November 2018. Information comparing prices will become available on the My Aged Care website from April 2019. A government committee is considering putting a cap on home care package administration fees amid claims some providers are charging up to 45 per cent on top of service fees.

Additional home care packages will be funded by reallocating unused residential care funding. The government announced in the budget that it would combine the residential and home care programs from 1 July 2018 to allow for greater flexibility in the allocation of aged care funding, allocating $1.6 billion over four years for the budget measure. Extra high-level packages in the budget followed the government’s decision to convert 17,825 Level 1 and 2 packages into 6,000 high care packages. The latest government data shows that 38,803 people are on the waiting list for a Level 3 or 4 Home Care Package (HCP) with no lower level package assigned, and 56,481 are awaiting their Level 3 or 4 HCP and have been assigned a lower level interim package. The waiting times for approved packages Levels 2-4 are still 9-12 months.

My Aged Care and GP software integration continues to progress, and consumers will be able to register for an assessment via the My Aged Care website by late 2019.