our latest news

Next Stages of the Aged Care Gateway

Care Assess will be preparing for the final stages of implementation of the Aged Care Gateway (called “My Aged Care”) over the next year.

The first stage involved the launching of the My Aged Care website (www.myagedcare.gov.au) and the My Aged Care contact centre (1800 200 422). The second stage commenced in July 2013, in which the Australian Government began building the capabilities of the Gateway, including roles and responsibilities and the tools necessary to commence Gateway assessments for access and entry into home care services in the near future in Australia.

The current stage is continuing with present work determining the relationship of the Gateway to the design of the new Commonwealth Home Support Program, which will commence in July 2015 to replace the current Home and Community Care (HACC) program and amalgamate with a number of other community aged care programs.

The next stage of the Gateway will provide a staged roll out of the national assessment framework, involving telephone screening by the Gateway contact centre and face-to-face assessments by regionally located assessment organisations on behalf of the Gateway.

This stage will include use of new Gateway assessment tools, a centralised client record, electronic referrals, and service matching tools.

The final plans have yet to be approved but it is anticipated that a staged roll out will commence from January 2015 in a small limited number of regions. Then from July 2015, with the commencement of the Commonwealth Home Support Program, the National Screening and Assessment functionality will commence for the new Aged Care Gateway. So from July 2015 there will be one assessment workforce across Australia for the Commonwealth Home Support Program, employing a Regional Assessment Teams model.

Care Assess has got a lot of work to do to prepare for the next stage of implementation of the My Aged Care Gateway. We are particularly thrilled to see the Australian Government recognising the need for a system-wide approach to reablement services and the importance of placing this at the front of end of the system. We also strongly support the emphasis in recognising the vital place of face-to-face assessment in order to ensure a wellness approach to maximising independence of consumers.

Further information about Care Assess

Care Assess is an independent assessment agency providing targeted, strategic and specialist HACC programs for older Tasmanians within the community sector, including: our post-acute enablement program (PAP), our intensive reablement program (HHIP), and our avoidance of hospital program (HAP). These higher level but short term programs require clinical/nursing oversight, and employ a wellness/restorative approach in order to maximise client functional independence outcomes while at the same time minimise overall/longer term service hours. For a quantitative evaluation of one of our programs, please see https://www.careassess.com.au/news/hhip-evaluation.

Please do not hesitate to make contact using our Contact Form to request further information from Care Assess about our HACC or other programs, or about our organisation.