The latest General Extract from My Aged Care data has recently been released by the Commonwealth Department of Health. Care has to be exercised in reviewing this information as it continues to show many errors in information uploaded from providers. We have sought to first review and “cleanse” the data to exclude the errors that can be identified or inferred.

 

Included in this data, extracted at 1 September 2020, are details of numbers of services that still have four-bed and three-bed rooms. After “cleansing” the data, a surprising 99 NSW services still show to have one or more four-bed rooms. A further 63 NSW services show one or more three-bed rooms. These numbers are well above the next highest state for numbers of services with one or more of these types of multi-bed rooms – Queensland.
 
It is expected that many of these services would no longer be using all of these shared rooms for multiple occupancy. It is hard enough to fill the preponderance of twin rooms in our sector with two residents who are unrelated, let alone trying to fill multiple-bed rooms in these times of record low occupancy in Australian residential aged care.
 

 

The higher accommodation supplement helps to pay for some of the costs of permanent resident accommodation. This higher rate applies to new or newly refurbished facilities and providers can apply online or complete an application form. Providers with new homes built after 20 April 2012 do not need to apply. Services Australia will automatically pay this supplement on behalf of eligible residents. Providers with a new aged care home will receive their higher payment from the date the service was completed; providers with refurbished homes will receive their higher payment from the date the Government receives the application; and providers seeking pre-approval will receive the higher payment from when their refurbishment is completed.

A surprising number of the applications we assist clients with show that they have overlooked eligible expenditure items and qualified for eligibility for the increased supplement several years earlier. Unfortunately, retrospectivity is not available. Please get your eligibility checked as soon as you can. 
 

JU&A is assisting clients around the country to apply to the Government to receive the higher accommodation supplement. If you wish to discuss your eligibility, please contact us today (07) 3229 8955 or isabelle@underwoods.com.au.