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Summary of My Aged Care System Changes

27 FEBRUARY 2017

This summary document is intended to assist service providers and assessors in understanding the changes made to the My Aged Care system on 27 February 2017.

These changes build on the changes made since 1 July 2015 to continue to improve the usability of the system. Click on the list of changes below for further information:

Changes to client data to support home care reforms Removing broad banding of home care package levels Establishment of the national queue for home care packages New service attributes and service information fields available for home care

providers New notifications specific to home care Introduction of new mandatory fields for ACAT assessors when recommending

home care Ability for ACAT assessors and delegates to nominate to receive notification of a

client’s home care correspondence from the department Changes to the My Aged Care home care package service finder Changes to service referrals for providers Ability for ACAT Delegates to request Residential Respite extensions via the

assessor portal Improvements to the Transition Care extension process Ability for assessors to issue referrals after an assessment has been finalised Improvements to the offline myAssessor application for assessors Extended visibility of client service information for providers while a care

extension request is pending Display of nominated primary contact person for a client Additional information captured and displayed for representatives and linked

relationships on the client record Enhancements to the sort and filter options in all portals Changes to reporting access and storage in My Aged Care

All guidance documentation (including user guides and quick reference guides) has

been updated to support this system release and is available on the

Department of Health’s website.

Further information on changes to be expected in future system releases is also

included on the final page of this document.

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Changes to support home care reforms

What? Why?

Changes to client data to support home care reforms –assessor and provider portals

People with an approval for home care granted since July 2008 will now have a My Aged Care client record. The Department of Health (the department) has sourced this client information including home care approvals and service information from the Department of Human Services.

These clients need to be in My Aged Care so the department can establish the national home care queue for home care and prioritise the assignment of home care packages to the individual. Additionally this is so the department can contact each client to advise them of their package assignment.

Removing broad banding of home care package levels – provider portal

Currently, home care provider administrators set their outlets up with Home Care Package Level 1-2 and Home Care Package Level 3-4 service items. These service items will be separated and appear as single package levels in the provider portal.

More information can be found in the following provider user guides -

My Aged Care Provider Portal User Guide: Part One - Administrator Functions and QRG - Create service delivery outlets and add service information using the My Aged Care provider portal.

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Changes to support home care reforms

What? Why?

Establishment of the national queue for home care packages –assessor and provider portals

The department has established a nationally consistent way of prioritising access to home care packages. By establishing a queue within the My Aged Care system, the department is able to review all home care approvals and schedule the release of new home care packages throughout the year to best meet the needs of home care clients.

Once prioritised in the national queue, clients are assigned a package and are notified via letters from the department about their package assignment.

Clients are prioritised on the basis of their approval date and the urgency of their need.

New service attributes and service information fields available for home care providers –provider portal

A number of new fields will be available for providers to complete and add to their home care service items.

One mandatory field has been added – the maximum exit amount a home care organisation may charge should a client leave their service. This must be set by the organisation administrator or by the outlet administrator at the outlet level before activating any home care service. All other new fields are not mandatory, but when information is populated, will provide a much richer researching experience for consumers in finding the provider that is right for them.

The new fields are: - Maximum exit amount - Language, religion and cultural specialties - Special needs groups supported

- Specialised services offerings (for example vision, continence or care for people with dementia)

- Ability to link to or load a pdf of the service costs and charges through provider pricing section

- Surcharges applicable such as weekend or evening hours - Case managed or other self-managed service offerings

These will also be searchable fields for assessors during the match and refer process on the My Aged Care assessor portal.

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Changes to support home care reforms

What? Why?

New notifications specific to home care – provider portal

Notifications on My Aged Care will be sent to providers to advise them of different circumstances relating to clients they are providing care to.

These notifications are:

Upgrade notification – where a client is receiving care through a package lower than their approved level, both the home care provider and client will be notified that the client has been assigned a higher level package.

Service porting notification – where a client is looking to change home care providers, the current provider will receive a notification when the new provider has accepted the service referral for the client. This notification should prompt the provider to discuss and agree a cessation date and management of unspent funds with the client.

Where a client is receiving Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) services prior to home care services, and commences receiving care through their home care package, the CHSP provider will receive a notification advising them of this.

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Changes to support home care reforms

What? Why?

Introduction of new mandatory fields for ACAT assessors when recommending home care –assessor portal

Assessors are required to recommend a consumer for a specific level of home care (instead of previous broad banded levels); and for a priority for home care services. This recommendation is required to be approved by a delegate. These approvals are necessary to prioritise the client for a home care package under the new arrangements.

In order to ensure the correct clients get added to the national queue for home care, assessors will be able to indicate whether the client is seeking or is not seeking home care services following their assessment.

The assessor can add this preference in the client’s support plan:

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Changes to support home care reforms

What? Why?

Delegates can add this preference after delegation:

Assessors can also update this preference at any point in ‘Approvals’ tab in the client record.

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Changes to support home care reforms

What? Why?

Other information the assessor will collect from the client relates to whether the client is willing to accept a lower level package in the interim, while waiting for their approved level of package. If so, the assessor can record this interim level when adding the home care recommendation. This can also be changed by the client or the assessor at any point after the assessment.

For more information on the home care changes for assessors see Quick Reference Guide 13 - Management of Home Care Packages from 27 February 2017.

Ability for ACAT assessors and delegates nominate to receive notification of a client’s home care correspondence from the department –assessor portal

Assessors or delegates will be able to elect to receive notifications of home care correspondence sent by the department to their clients to enable them to continue to provide support for those clients who may require additional assistance prior to entering care.

This feature allows assessors and delegates to select anyone from their outlet to receive the notification, which will appear in the tasks and notifications tab.

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Changes to support home care reforms

What? Why?

ACAT assessor:

Delegate:

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Changes to support home care reforms

What? Why?

Changes to the My Aged Care home care package service finder – My Aged Care website

To support consumers, carers and family members in choosing the right home care provider, a number of new fields will be available for providers to complete and add to their service listing on the My Aged Care service finder. Website users will be able to compare providers and print or email their selections.

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Improving My Aged Care provider and assessor portal functionality

What? Why?

Changes to service referrals for providers –provider portal

To improve efficiencies and processes relating to My Aged Care, service referrals (for all service types) will be issued to providers who will then choose how they are accepted. These options include:

- Accept to service (client directly enters care)

- Accept to waitlist (client is waitlisted to start care)

- Reject a referral

The option for a provider to ‘Reject with offer to waitlist’ will be removed and contact centre staff and assessors will no longer have the option to send a waitlist referral.

Ability for ACAT Delegates to request Residential Respite extensions via the assessor portal – assessor portal

Currently, requests for Residential Respite Care Extensions can only be initiated by service providers when the client is receiving services through their outlet at the time the extension is requested.

Changes have been made to enable ACAT delegates to initiate an extension request from the assessor portal where the client is not receiving residential respite services at the time that the extension is required.

More information on this process is available in the ACAT pack - Quick Reference Guide 10 - Delegate processes.

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Improving My Aged Care provider and assessor portal functionality

What? Why?

Ability for assessors to issue referrals after an assessment has been finalised – assessor portal

During the Accelerated Design sessions in late 2016, assessors reported issues with the management of referrals post-assessment. They were required to conduct a support plan review to action referrals after finalising an assessment, which is particularly relevant for rejected referrals.

Assessors will now have the ability to re-issue referrals from a client’s support plan after they have finalised an assessment without the need to undertake a support plan review.

Improvements to the Transition Care extension process – provider portal

Previously, when a service provider requested a Transition Care extension, the My Aged Care system would automatically set the commencement date of the extension as the request date, forfeiting any remaining days of an active Transition Care episode. ACAT assessors and providers were unable to change this commencement date. Enhancements to the Transition Care extension process include:

1. The system will now auto-calculate the new extension start date to be the date of original entry plus 85 days

2. The service provider will receive notification of the delegate decision in the My Aged Care provider portal

3. The status of request will be visible in the ‘Services’ tab of the client record

Further detail on this process is described in QRG - Recording and updating service delivery information.

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Improving My Aged Care provider and assessor portal functionality

What? Why?

Improvements to the offline myAssessor application for assessors – myAssessor application and assessor portal

New features have been added to the myAssessor application to increase functionality and usability. These are:

Self-service function in the My Aged Care assessor portal that enables assessors to activate and/or unlock their devices without needing to call the My Aged Care contact centre

The ability to easily change devices by reactivating assessor credentials in the My Aged Care assessor portal

A diagnostics tool available in the Settings menu to identify connectivity issues and allow assessors to submit diagnostic/device logs upon request, for investigation

An improved ability to select when no health conditions are present when conducting an assessment

The ability to view and remove assessments from their device via the My Aged Care assessor portal

Minor enhancements to increase overall efficiency Spellcheck is now available across all devices based on

recommendations provided during the Accelerated Design sessions in late 2016

For more details on these changes, refer to the myAssessor App user guide.

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Improving My Aged Care provider and assessor portal functionality

What? Why?

Extended visibility of client service information for providers while a care extension request is pending – provider portal

Service providers currently lose visibility of clients past their service end dates. If an extension request is approved after the service end date, service providers cannot view or modify the client’s service information.

Changes have been made to give service providers extended access to client service information when a Transition Care or Residential Respite extension is pending Delegate approval.

More information on this change can be found in Quick Reference Guide - Recording and updating client service delivery information using the My Aged Care provider portal.

Display of nominated primary contact person for a client – assessor and provider portal

During the Accelerated Design sessions in late 2016, participants highlighted that there is no functionality to easily record or view a client’s primary contact person (i.e. the client or a representative/support person), which resulted in incorrect people being contacted. Changes have been made that give the My Aged Care contact centre, assessors and clients (or representative) the ability to add and edit primary contact details for a client. The primary contact person will be the first person called where the client must be contacted.

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Improving My Aged Care provider and assessor portal functionality

What? Why?

Additional information captured and displayed for representatives and linked relationships on the client record – assessor and provider portals

Currently creation of representatives or other relationships only allows users to capture a limited set of information and providers cannot view address or phone number details. The system will:

1. Display the home address and mobile phone number of a client’s related person in the representative section of client details tab in assessor and provider portals

2. Enable assessors to add, edit home address, date of birth, and mobile phone number of any related persons on the client record.

More information on this change is available in Quick Reference Guide 2 -

Registering representatives and adding relationships for both the ACAT

and RAS assessor packs.

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Improving My Aged Care provider and assessor portal functionality

What? Why?

Enhancements to the sort and filter options in all portals – assessor and provider portals

Currently, sorting and filtering of portal items are not consistently applied across both the assessor and provider portals. A core set of fields for sorting and filtering have been applied to all relevant sections in the assessor and provider portals, including referrals, clients and assessments in both card and list views. ‘Advanced search options’ replaces the current ‘Find more search options’ and enables users to customise their sort and filter options.

This function is described in detail in all relevant quick reference guides for both assessors and providers.

Changes to reporting access and storage in My Aged Care – assessor and provider portals

In an effort to increase speed and to improve the usability of reporting in My Aged Care, all reports generated by assessors or providers, will now be removed from view every seven days. These reports can be generated again by portal users if required.

In addition, assessors will only see reports relevant to their roles.

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FURTHER INFORMATION The next major system release is expected to be in June 2017. The scope of this release

is still being finalised, and is subject to change. The release will focus on:

Improvements to the assessor and provider portals

More information about services available to assessors during match and refer

Ability for users to access both the service provider and assessor portal using a

single AUSkey or VANguard account

Ability for staff assigned at the organisation level to select which outlet they

want to view and ability for Team Leaders assigned at the organisation level to

retrieve referrals codes and select which outlet it applies to

Improvements resulting from the Accelerated Design process:

Improvements to the Support Plan Review functionality and request process,

including the ability for the contact centre to request a review on-system

Significant enhancements to the myAssessor app, including the ability to commence a support plan within the offline app

Improvements to management of tasks and notification preferences and overall usability

Additional information displayed in individual tasks and notifications Enhancements to the printed support plan

Ability for service providers to generate workload management reports