At a Department of Health and Aged Care (DoHAC) webinar on the new regulatory model held on 30 January, a questioner asked, "Is anyone else concerned that we have so many questions still on how the new program will work?"

Robert Day, Assistant Secretary Harmonisation and Regulatory Strategy Branch with the DoHAC, having already fielded questions from dozens of questioners, responded with, "There's a degree to which I'm not surprised, to be honest.

"The closer that we get to implementation, the more questions there will be, and I actually wouldn't be surprised if we had more questions after the 1st of July, because as you start to live and experience something, that naturally throws up more questions."

But he said "the scope and precision" of the questions received at the January webinar in comparison to the November webinar indicates "there's a level of knowledge and awareness that's built up in the intervening period".

The webinar presented an opportunity for the DoHAC to share important details of the reforms, with a selection outlined below.

In April, providers will be able to view a Provider Registration Preview showing what information the DoHAC has about them and how they will be deemed across to the new system into the new categories (see image above) on 1 July 2025.

"That is a really good time to make sure your information is as up to date as possible," said Robert.

Tranche 3 of the Rules are expected to be released in February for consultation, with Tranches 1 and 2 already released, and another tranche will be released in March.

The "first chapters" of the Support at Home Program Manual should be available "in the next month", Robert added. He said the manual will include a list of case management services that will be allowable under the 10% care management funding block.

The webinar noted that when aged care places are allocated to individuals rather than providers from 1 July 2025, the DoHAC will collect data from providers about the number of beds available to potential residents and how many are offline. We have previously reported the Department currently includes offline beds in its calculations of occupancy, meaning they underestimate true occupancy levels.

There were also concerns expressed about consultation on the Rules if the Government goes into caretaker mode after calling the election, however, Robert said it may end up being a "non issue" depending on when the election is held.

The webinar was chaired by Jasmine Snow, Acting Assistant Secretary Support at Home Reform with the DoHAC, who is acting as Nick Morgan's replacement after he was promoted to the role of Primary Care and Workforce Reviews Taskforce, DoHAC.