ACFI Income Under Pressure
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A 1st October 2019 review of the ACFI profile of 26,977 residents at 87 organisations operating 422 facilities (RACS) identified that, for the current financial year, over 55 percent of providers have incurred a reduction in ACFI income payment rate (after excluding the COPE increase).
Our associated ACFI reviewers analyse the data for almost 15% of the residential aged care sector every three months. A fall in real ACFI income for over 55% of our clients is shown for the three months from 1 Jul 2019 to 1 Oct 2019. The analysis also shows that over 31% of providers have seen a real decrease (i.e. excluding COPE) since 1 Jul 2017.
Key reasons for the decrease include:
- Stringent application of ACFI rules by department officers when undertaking audits of ACFI supporting evidence.
- Changes to ACFI business rules.
- Continued transfer of the resident population to the lower-paying January 2017 ACFI classification rules.
- Admission of lower acuity residents.
- Significant evidence of failure to claim full ACFI entitlements.
The ACFI has been in operation since March 2008. It is reasonable to ask why, 11 years later, there is still evidence that service providers are failing to claim full ACFI entitlements? The primary reason we see is that many providers do not have the necessary business processes including expert level understanding of application of the ACFI rules.
Complimentary participation in our almost 27,000 person ACFI data-base analysis is available for all clients and is very simple to arrange.
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Daily Fees for Vacated Room - Residential Aged Care
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In our Ageing Matters last week, we asked our clients what their policy is regarding the charging of fees when a resident dies and their belongings remain in their room or are stored at the service.
The Aged Care Act 1997 specifies that a provider cannot charge a fee for or in connection with residential care after a care recipient dies, because the care recipient is no longer receiving that care.
We have received further advice from the DoH, noting that a 'reasonable' period of time should be allowed for a family to retrieve their loved one's belongings, and that generally a week or two is considered reasonable. Beyond this, if a fee were charged for storage of a deceased resident's items, this fee would need to be reasonable and that this fee cannot be charged under the Aged Care Act 1997.
This fee would need to be a separate charge arranged between the provider and a representative of the care recipient's estate.
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