Mirus Australia is releasing a new interactive tool to give providers a step-by-step framework to begin planning for the ACFI to AN-ACC transition.

The Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI), the primary funding mechanism for Aged Care, will transition to the new Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) funding model on 1 October 2022.

The AN-ACC model will operate very differently to ACFI:  

• The case mix model will focus and fund different attributes of care at different levels to ACFI
• The AN-ACC model will fund palliative care and care for minorities and remote locations differently to ACFI or current supplements
• The model will operate with a National Weighted Activity Unit (NWAU) which can be adjusted by a governing body
• The underlying diagnostics will not be the same as those in common use today
• The assessment of the AN-ACC classifications will be done externally not by internal staff with external validations.

“While October 2022 might seem like some time away, providers need to start preparing their organisations for the transformation now. We’ve seen first-hand the impact new funding models can have when ACFI was first introduced. It affects many parts of the operations but preparing earlier will make this transition much smoother," says Andrew Farmer (pictured above), Mirus Australia CEO.

Mirus Australia, which launched an AN-ACC component to its ACFI calculator in June, said its new instrument helps providers prepare for the changes across their organisation.

The Mirus ACFI- to AN-ACC Pathway (MAAP) helps aged care providers consider key stages of preparation for the required changes across their organisation. The diagnostic is organised into three phases across five workstreams.  

“There is no question that AN-ACC is on the minds of providers, but with limited information available we wanted to give the industry a tool that they could use to get organised,” said Mr Farmer.