Nothing but a smokescreen

Minister Butler has confirmed on radio there will be a $300 million budgeted funding increase for the sector in 2012/13. But ACSA-SA CEO, Paul Carberry, says that ‘macro’ figure is merely a smokescreen.

Above: CEO of ACAA-SA, Paul Carberry

By Yasmin Noone

The Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, has confirmed that the changes to the Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) will not be introduced to the detriment of aged care providers as there is, in fact, a $310 million budgeted increase in residential care subsidies throughout 2012-13.

Minister Butler, who spoke on Adelaide radio station 891 ABC today, maintained that in no way will the changes reduce the care subsidies as providers fear it will. Instead, as the minister also told AAA, the ‘claw back’ of the ACFI will help return the future rate of growth in care subsidies per resident, in real terms, to historical trend levels.

Aged Care Association Australia- SA’s CEO, Paul Carberry, said the conflict between the government’s view that their actions will not hurt providers and the sector’s view that it will, should be explained.

Mr Carberry believes the minister’s contention that there is a $300 million budgeted increase in “no way changes the fact that the care subsides of many individual residents entering aged care after 1/7/12 will be lower than they would have been if they had been assessed under the current rules”.

He has also called the $300 million budget growth spoken of by the minister, “a smokescreen”.

“This is a macro-budget figure which includes such factors as the increasing number of people in the system, and the increased average frailty of people entering,” Mr Carberry said.

“Of course, if there are more people in the system and, on average, their care needs are greater, the budget has to allow for that.

“But it will provide no consolation at all, to the thousands of elderly people entering aged care after 1/7/12, and discovering that their aged care provider is being paid fewer dollars to care for them than they would have been paid in the past.”

CEO of Aged Care Association Australia, Rod Young (who will retire as the organisation moves under the ‘LASA’ banner from July 1), discussed the matter at last week’s ACCV State Congress.

“The department is claiming that, even though there is a significant change happening, even though the growth in the ACFI outlays is to be [shot] from seven percent growth to three per cent growth, nonetheless we will receive more money in 2012/13 than what we are receiving this year,” Mr Young said. 

“I don’t know about you but I am having great difficulty accepting that contention.

“The department has offered to do an in-depth analysis with a small number of providers to look at their modelling being applied so we can clearly understand whether they are right or they are wrong…At this point in time it looks clearly to us as though [the department] is wrong.

“The issue really relates to their contention that if you have a resident that goes out as high-high-high [needs], they will be replaced by a resident who comes in as low-medium-low or low-medium-medium [needs].

“But I think- correct me if I am wrong- from what I am hearing from the industry, that is not what is happening any more. People are staying in facilities longer and people going out as high-high-high are being replaced by people coming in as high-high-high or very close to it.”

Mr Young later warned that the changes could translate into a personal loss of income for providers.

If this happens, he said, “every time a provider gets a new resident that provides less money than the person being replaced, they should then generate an invoice for the difference”.

“And send that invoice to your local MP.

“…We are not going to win this if we go forward and say ‘woe is us.”

The invoices should speak for themselves, he said, and make the sector’s argument clear – more funding is needed.

Tags: 2012-budget, acfi, aged-care-reform, minister-butler, paul-carberry,

2 thoughts on “Nothing but a smokescreen

  1. Interesting …just this week I read somewhere that Aged Care provideres through their Advanced Care Planning Programs are saving the govt $300 mil off the Health Care buget…they used to call that cost shifting.
    Also which part of the budget did they find the $50 mil going to cleanup rail yards in Tassie, and where did the Tassie Health Care bail out come from.
    Yet we are supposed to push on and be enthusiastic about doing more with less. Impoertant program that really make a difference to quality of life will no doubt be cut under these new ” Living Longer , Living Better” arrangements.

  2. “Instead, as the minister also relayed to AAA, the ‘claw back’ of the ACFI will help return the future rate of growth in care subsidies per resident, in real terms, to historical trend levels”.What a load of bull…. Govt policy recently and into the future with an emphasis on community aged care and supporting people at home for longer makes “historical growth” a joke. Residents arrive later in life, with greater needs, higher demands and increased administration/ documentation costs.The inability to recognise this as a major factor in increasing costs simply re-enforced how far away from reality this government is!

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