News

A public discussion paper on future care at home reform is now available on the Consultation Hub.

We are seeking your views on how future reform can best support older Australians to remain living at home and in their communities.

We would also welcome your early views and feedback on the February 2017 changes to home care to give consumers more choice in selecting a provider and introduce a nationally consistent process for assigning packages to consumers.

Read more:

Seeking your views – Future care at home reform

Future reform – an integrated care at home program to support older Australians

Future care at home reform

Released: 11 July 2017

New policies and processes have been implemented to make life easier for all consumers, particularly older people with diverse needs, and health professionals who use My Aged Care.

My Aged Care is the Australian Government’s one-stop shop for aged care support.

Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt said one of the most important changes to My Aged Care was clarification of who can speak on a consumer’s behalf, and under what circumstances.

“If a person is capable of consenting to someone speaking and acting on their behalf in My Aged Care, he or she now has greater flexibility in appointing a regular representative, and who that person can be,” Minister Wyatt said.

“In those cases where a person may not be capable of providing such consent, the consumer will need to have an authorised representative appointed for them.”

Read more:

Streamlined My Aged Care improves consumer support and access (.pdf)

The department held an open funding round in February-March this year seeking a single provider to deliver the new National Aged Care Advocacy Program (NACAP).

From 1 July 2017, the Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN) has been engaged to provide free, confidential and independent advocacy support to older people (including their families and representatives) who are receiving, or seeking to receive, Australian Government funded aged care services.

Read more:

New National Aged Care Advocacy Program

The National Aged Care Advocacy Program

Released: 11 July 2017

The Australian Government has released $34 million in funding grants to support innovation in dementia care and other aged care services.

Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt said the grants would help the aged care system to meet the challenges ahead.

“The projects to be funded are cutting-edge and will strengthen the capacity of the aged care sector to respond to consumer-directed care and the challenges of dementia,” Minister Wyatt said.

“We know Australia’s population is ageing, and we know the aged care system must adapt to meet the community’s changing needs.”

42 projects will receive grants, with the focus on six priority areas.

“The Australian Government is committed to supporting the aged care sector as it moves towards consumer-directed care,” Minister Wyatt said.

“Supporting these projects will identify barriers that restrict access and choice and help ensure the special needs of consumers from diverse backgrounds are met.”

Read more:

Innovation Grants Support Dementia and Aged Care Choices (.pdf)

Attached is a communique from the Department of Human Services.

DHS Provider Communique: Quarterly Review July 2017 (.pdf)

The Department of Health has released a new edition of its ‘Information for Aged Care Providers’ newsletter.

Read more:

Information for Aged Care Providers – Issue #2017/12 (.pdf)

From 3 July 2017, My Aged Care is making changes to better support clients, including clients with diverse needs and improve access to information for health professionals.

These improvements will support clients through their My Aged Care journey, ensuring they are able to receive the assessments and aged care services they need. The changes will also improve health professionals’ access to information to support them to provide continuity of care for their patients.

Read more:

Improvements to My Aged Care

Service providers: Overview of My Aged Care representation changes

Assessors: Overview of My Aged Care representation changes

Health professionals: overview of changes to improve access to patient information

The next Manad Plus version update, which contains all the various rate updates, has now been finalised and released.

The Indexation of Residential Aged Care and Home Care subsidy and supplement rates to take effect from 1 July 2017 were published earlier this week. If you would like to make yourself familiar with the new rates, you will have received these via our eNews sent out on Tuesday 27th June (you can view that here).

Version 5 clients:

A new version, 5.4.56290.0, has been pushed out to all servers which were online. Those that were offline were not able to receive the upgrade file and you will need to contact our Help Desk to request this again (once your server is back online and able to receive the update file).

Please arrange for your IT Administrator to backup your database first and then run this update when all staff have logged out of Manad Plus, at a time which is convenient to you.

NOTE: We recommend running this when our help desk is open and you can receive support if needed.

Version 4 clients:

A new version, 4.17.10, which will contain the new rates has been created and we are in the process of logging in and manually running this update for you on your server as we have done in the past (or if we have had other arrangements in the past we will continue with this process).

If you have any questions, then please contact our Help Desk:

• support@manad.com.au

• 1300 62 62 32

Commencing July 2017, pharmacists should include the RACFId (residential aged care facility identification number) for the nursing home each time a PBS/RPBS item is dispensed for all of the pharmacy’s nursing home patients.

The changes will make dispensing easier for pharmacists, as the RACFId will be used for PBS/RPBS supplies to all nursing homes. At present, the RACFId is only required for most supplies to nursing homes that have started using the National Residential Medication Chart (NRMC), or a commercial equivalent charting product that complies with PBS legislation.

Read more:

Revised Dispensing for nursing home residents (.pdf)

The world has been hit by a fresh ransomware epidemic spreading rapidly around the globe that uses the same tools exploited in the recent WannaCry epidemic.

The threat appears to be a variant of the Petya malware, which surfaced last year and crashes computers, rebooting them after rewriting the hard disk master boot record.

Read more:

Massive ransomware outbreak hits servers worldwide

What we know so far about the Petya/GoldenEye ransomware