Key financial recommendations from the Royal Commission
24 Mar 2021
The Commonwealth Government needs to respond to these recommendations with an Action plan by the 31st May 2021
Recommendations include:
- Both Commissioners agree that a levy (eg. 1% of taxable income) should be placed on the Australian Tax Payer (similar to how the Medicare Levy works) with the fund to be exclusively directed towards the aged care sector.
- From 1/7/2024, the level of funding to remain at home will be the equivalent of what is available at a residential aged care service.
- Care should be based on need, not rationing – ie. The uncapping of supply. To this point, by 31/12/2021, the entire home care package wait list to be cleared at the level the person was approved for. From 1/1/2022 the longest someone can wait for their package to be allocated is one month from the date of assessment.
Whilst these are all welcome changes it might be a bit ambitious to beleieve that waiting lists can be reduced from over 12 months in some instances to 30 days in just 6 months.
There are also some significant financial changes amongst the recommendations that will have significant impacts on both consumers and Aged care Providers.
Key amongst these are:
- Both Commissioners recommend the phasing out of Refundable Accommodation Deposits (from 1/7/2025), but have disagreed as to how the RAD will be replaced.
- No later than 1/7/2021, increase to the basic daily care fee by $10 per resident per day.
- If an individual is in receipt of an income support payment (eg. age/service pension), the means tested amount is zero.
- The lifetime caps on the means tested contributions should be removed.
If implemented, these changes would be the biggest change to the Residential Aged caresystem since July 2014