Home Care Packages - What are they?
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- čas přidán 30. 07. 2024
- It is sometimes confusing for people outside the industry to understand the funded aged care programs - who are they for, what is the eligibility criteria, how do you access them.
In this video Carrie discusses Home Care Packages, or HCP's as they are often shortened to.
HCP Manual for Providers: www.health.gov.au/resources/p...
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Thank you for this session. It has helped me understand (in brief) what I needed to know. The basics as it were. Yes I would love to see more of these as I am at that age where it is something I have to think about for my husband and myself, plus, being a nurse and working in aged care, is important knowledge for me.
Hi Val, thanks for your comments. It certainly helps us know what people want to know more about.
Definitely interested in a video about what you can't use funding for. Eg some providers will 'allow' spending on specialised shoes or continence wear, others won't. Great 'disappointment' or dissatisfaction often comes from Clients who have unrealistic expectations. Thanks for the great HCP run-down. I'm going to recommend to others.
Thanks for your feedback Martina, I will follow this up with a further video and yes I've been hearing some of the complaints from clients and I believe a lot of it comes from a lack of clear communication on how a package can be used.
Good to have the history
Thanks Debra, I think so too 🙂
Thank you
You're welcome
What happens if they need more support than their package can provide? I am interested to know. Thank you for the video it is really helpful.😊👍
Good question, if someone needs more support than their package can provide, they should be referred back to My Aged Care for a review of their package level. If they have fully expended their package, they may be assessed for a higher package level. If they are on a level 4, though, it gets difficult as home care support doesn't cover 24-hour care, which usually means the family carer needs to take on a lot of the physical caring, the person needs to move into residential care or they need to find the funds to pay for additional care and potentially a full-time carer.
Due to a shortage of labour could you do a video on sub contactors and the approval process. ie need for invoice and reimbursement.
Good idea, I have added it to the list as it is an important area that we have worked through with a number of providers. Currently all subcontractors need to be managed through the approved provider, that will change in the future though once the new home care program is introduced in July 2024.
Why does the system put the burden on the client to write the notes.? Perhaps there should be a register the worker can sign off.
There's no requirement for the client to write notes, however the care staff and case managers should keep up to date notes on the care and services delivered to the person to help with continuity of care and as evidence they are addressing the person's needs. Sorry if I confused the issue in the video.
Good presentation but we didn't really need the lengthy history lesson. Also, I wanted information from the consumer's point of view but this presentation seemed to be aimed only from the HCP provider's perspective, though I did get some useful information. But what I still cannot ascertain is how much a Centrelink pensioner would be required to actually pay directly from their pension, typically, to access,say, Level 1 care. Nobody seems to discuss that but another pensioner told me to forget HCP and just directly hire ordinary domestic help cleaners,gardeners etc to help you,as needed because you still have to pay out money to HCP workers from your meagre welfare pension, even though the government has so generously subsidised such potentially very helpful Home Care for aged/disabled people. The other thing I and others want to know us: If you get offered a package, are you obliged to start using it immediately or can you wait until you get seriously incapable of doing things for yourself and then draw on the HCP for necessary help ue when you feel you really need it because you just can"t do it for yourself any more or just too bloody old? And one final question, if a HCP consumer is allocated, say a level 1 care package, which might specify a set number of hours of care daily or whatever, do they have to stick to this rigid routine care eg same time, same place to get whatever care is signed by up to or? Or can it be some sorts of occasional care an otherwise healthy, self sufficient senior might need eg you go to have a colonoscopy and you are perfectly OK afterwards but you are required to have someone drive you home and stay with you the whole night, but you have nobody, are not allowed to catch a taxi safely home or even stay at a motel nearly the same hospital, like happens where I live. So a person might only need to access such obligatory care, say, once every three years. They don't need a carer dropping by regularly, on a routine basis. How would that work? Given that now, there will soon be a law that specifies carers must get a minimum of two hours caring work or be paid for a minimum of two hours, each visit they do. Who pays them for this 2hours minimum? The government or the pensioner, directly from their welfare pension pay, when they get invoices by their HCP provider? It's a very well intentioned and potentially very beneficial service by both our government and carers alike,xwho mostly do a good job and deserve to be fairly rewarded but it sounds like a very convoluted, massive, complex nightmare of a bureaucracy for consumers to have to try and navigate understand etc fully and many consumers of HCP confirm this, to me, from bad experiences with it. And because it is complex and somewhat lacking in transparency, in some respects, HCP would be a system very vulnerable to abuses by eg unscrupulous providers etc. We like to think these don't exist but the reality is, like we have seen with bad residential care facilities during COVID, the do exist. And help aged care inmates and HCP recipients who often have caring family, hence need for such care, are powerless to do anything about the financial anther abuses they are so vulnerable to being exposed to. This doesn't imply the entire Aged/disability industry is bad. There are some excellent providers and care workers. But there are also the other kind, hopefully just a rare irity, but it only takes a few unscrupulous ones to give entire industry a very bad reputation that puts seniors off even bothering to apply for a HCP, even if they need one. There needs to be much tighter control, auditing etc by the government over how the money it so generously provides to help the elderly is spent. In other words, who is it REALLY helping? The HCP provider's and carers personal finances? Or the consumer's care needs? Some answers please, if you can provide these.
Thanks for the feedback Anne, it's good to know what is useful or not, I'll look at adding chapters so that people can skip the history if not relevant ;-) Yes, this video was aimed at helping care staff working in the industry understand HCP but to answer your other questions: the maximum a pensioner can be charged as a 'fee' is 16.5% of the base single pension, but it also cannot more than the cost of providing their services, this is often referred to as the 'basic daily fee'. Of course someone receiving Super payments may pay more up but only up to the cost of providing the service. Yes, you really do need to consider the value of a level one package, particularly if you only need basic supports like house cleaning once a fortnight or gardening, some people end up taking up a HCP because they can't get CHSP level service, personally, I wouldn't. Re the time you have to accept a package, you only have 56 days once a package is allocated to decide whether to accept the package and who you want to manage that package however, once you have been approved if you are someone who doesn't want to accept a package straight away or you are not sure you can call My Aged Care and ask them to change your status to 'not actively seeking' a package, this moves you temporarily to the bottom of the list. Once you need the package you can contact My Aged Care and change your status to 'seeking a package' and you move back up the wait list to a point that reflects both your current needs and your 'time waiting'. HCP is really only for people who need ongoing support, CHSP services can help for short term support, or there is a program called Transitional Care packages (TCP's) that provide up to 12 weeks of support after a person goes home from hospital - it's designed to help the person get back on their feet and avoid bouncing back into hospital. I'm not clear on the future minimum hours for care staff however, my understanding at the moment is that care staff have a minimum of two hours of work - this can be over one or more clients they are supporting, I don't think this will change that much as you pointed out, not everyone needs 2 hours of support at one time. Of course we are in the midst of reform and programs will be changing over the next 18 months, we'll be doing some videos once we get further confirmation - but thanks again for your comments.
Me need to be a job in old aged home can you gauid me soon
Is there a email that I can contact you directly?
Hi, if you go to the 'About' tab in CZcams you will find our email address, feel free to drop us a line through there.
Me need to be a job in old aged home
Can you gauid me soon