Submission on proposed residential aged care funding model

This submission is made in response to a consultation paper by the Department of Health.

A more stable funding model is sought, to provide greater certainty to government, providers and investors.  A better model might help persons with high care needs find residential care.

The University of Wollongong has proposed an Australian National Aged Care Classification, for use in a funding model.  Their proposed classification subdivides residents into 13 payment classes, using complex criteria, but has poor performance. 

The University concluded that functional assessments could effectively be completed by external assessors, generally in less than one hour.   No measurements appear to have been made of inter-rater reliability. The fewer the items to be assessed, and the lower their measurement errors, the less vulnerable the assessments will be to legal challenge.

Much more work is needed before a new residential aged care funding model can be safely introduced.