The Department of Health and Aged Care has released a timeline for the release of rules supporting the new aged care legislation, and the periods that the rules will be open for consultation.

Some of the rules won't be published until "early March" 2025, and after four weeks' consultation will only be finalised in early April, assuming the schedule is maintained. This leaves less than three months for providers to implement the relevant changes.

The rules released in March are not insubstantial. They relate to duties of operators of aged care digital platforms, new requirements around complaints, and "wrapping up the remaining rules under the Bill, particularly Chapters 2, 5, 6, 7 and 8". 

Providers "require certainty"

"The timeline released by the Department is a small but significant step towards understanding the operation of the new framework as a whole," Penelope Eden, who heads up MinterEllison's aged care legal team, told The SOURCE.

It "helpfully provides greater clarity around the Government's proposal to release the remainder of the rules and engage in further public consultation".

"Complexity compounded"

the "complexity" of implementing the "impending changes" is "compounded" by the fact they are all occurring at the same time.

"Simultaneously, next year, we will see the biggest changes in almost all parts of aged care operations ever, and we will be expected to get it 100% right. Really?

"It is foreseeable that the combination of changes that are coming, when combined with the existing financial pressures faced by the industry, will result in unanticipated outcomes that for providers will be negative ones."