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Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) Under Review

Minister for Ageing, Justine Elliot has now released the terms of reference for the Government's Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) review which they aim to have completed by June 2010.

The use of ACFI commenced on 20 March 2008 with the purpose of allocating Aged Care facilities with Australian Government care subsidies.  ACFI was designed to have funding matched more precisely to each resident's care needs and to enable time spent on form filling by care staff to be significantly reduced.

It has been the longstanding intention of the Government to review ACFI once approved providers had some experience of working with the new system.

The Department of Health and Ageing have released a statement in which they state that the purpose of the review is to draw on existing information and on public submissions to determine whether ACFI has been working effectively in achieving its objectives of:

• Better matching funding to the complex care needs of residents;
• Reducing the documentation created by aged care providers;
• Reducing the level of disagreement between providers and the findings of departmental validators.

The Department also states that the review will examine:

• The funding levels of approved providers in particular of low care providers and providers in rural and remote areas;
• Access to appropriate care, especially for residents with special needs;
• If there are any gaps or anomalies in the ACFI in relation to care needs;
• If the ACFI appropriately recognises the roles of care providers in relation to the delivery of care needs; and
• The appropriateness of Schedule 1 of the Quality of Care Principles 1997 in determining the services to be provided to residents of aged care facilities with differing levels of care needs.