Home Care is about to change significantly. You should know one reason but you are unlikely to know the second.
Home Care changes to a new system titled Support at Home (S@H) on 1 July, just 105 days from now, or 71 working days.
A lot of the changes are going to create confusion in retirement villages.
The first is that residents who have been in the Home Care system since before mid last year will continue to operate under the old system in terms of what the government pays for. However, newer residents will be under the new system, and this has big changes, like the resident now being required to pay some or all of non-clinical services.
If they require a cleaner, which is non-clinical, they will have to pay themselves for up to 80% of the cost per hour.
To create even more confusion, the Home Care provider is required to ask permission to charge and adjust any prices. The expectation is many people will say ‘no’ I don’t want to pay, and will go without.
Village management is highly likely to be drawn into this as the resident falls behind, in cleaning in this example.
Australian Unity, the largest home care provider in the country, has estimated it will take them 90,000 man hours to explain to customers the new operations of S@H, and they are not sure how they can achieve that.
The second big event in Home Care is that the chances of your residents being able to get Home Care within the next year or two is highly unlikely.
The reason is the number of people turning 80 jumps by 40%+ this year but the Home Care workforce and packages does not. For the LEADERS SUMMIT in Sydney today, we developed this chart:
What it shows is that by 2027, when the first surge in people turning 80 turn 82 and start wanting Home Care, 49% won't be able to due to no workforce. That is around 120,000 people.
And this does not take in the fact there are 81,000 people currently waiting 12 months for access to a Package.
Our advice: look at how you can make your village super attractive to the Home Care provider you like most, and then attempt to get as many of your residents onto that provider’s client list.
You and your residents will be a lot more attractive if the operators can have the efficiency of a large customer base in one tight location, with an easier village house design to provide home support.
You now have 104 days.
