Multi-Purpose Service – Aged Care Reforms: impacts on the MPSP & providers – webinar recording

[Opening visual of slide with text saying ‘Aged Care Reforms – Impacts on the MPS program and providers (Webinar…’, ‘2025-03-26 03:00 UTC’]

[The visuals during this webinar are of each speaker presenting in turn, with reference to the content of a PowerPoint presentation being played on screen]

Cathy Milfull:

All right. Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us for this next webinar in our MPS reform series. As you know my name’s Cathy Milfull. I’m Acting Assistant Secretary of the Thin Markets Brach which has responsibility for the Multi-Purpose Service Program. So I’ll be hosting today’s webinar. So happy post-Budget day. It’s great to be with you again. I’ve also got my team on the line including Roger Hunt who will join me at the end of this presentation. Thanks Roger. And so we’ll do the Q&A session together. So we’ll do the formal presentation first as normal and then Roger and I will be available to answer any questions at the end.

I just wanted to flag I believe the Q&A function is on but we’re also just very happy for you to use the meeting chat if you like as well. There have been a few ICT difficulties today in the Department so whatever works. If you send us through your questions we’ll do our best to answer them. So that’s really it for I think the housekeeping today.

Before I get started though I just wanted to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we are meeting today all across Australia where we live, learn and work. I would like to pay my respects to Elders past and present and recognise their resilience and strength and their rich contribution to society. And also extend special respect to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples here with us today.

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Multi-Purpose Service Program (MPSP)’, ‘Webinar 7’, ‘Aged care reforms:’, ‘Impacts on the MPSP & providers’, ’26 March 2025’, ‘Thin Markets Branch’, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘www.health.gov.au’]

So we’ve got the slides up now so we’ll kick into the presentation. This first slide just shows you what we’re going to cover today and we have had to change this up a little bit I’m afraid just to reflect what’s been going on in aged care, where we’re up to with the aged care consultations and availability today. So today again sorry you’re stuck with me but I’m just going to go through some reform updates for you as normal and then today’s focus is really on release 4a of the rules. So we’ll go through that in a bit more detail with you today so that you can understand (a) what’s coming for 1 July but also can provide feedback to the Department if you think there’s for example any unintended consequences from the proposed rules. I’ll then just talk briefly about the transitionals before we open up for questions. We might not go the full hour today but it will depend on how many questions. So we’ll just see how we go today.

All right. So the next slide as normal just gives you a bit of a look into the future webinar topics. As usual this can change and as usual we welcome any feedback that you have. But basically you can see kind of our plan for the next three months. April the focus will be on regulation and we’re going to get our friends from the Aged Care Commission along to talk to you directly. Importantly we’ll also have a presentation on the new supported decision making arrangements under the new Act so encourage everyone to be there for that. May then there’s going to be a bit of a focus on the proposed new funding model review for MPS and we’re also going to get our colleagues from IHACPA, the Pricing Authority to come along and talk to you as well. June likely to be a bit of a wrap up as we all make final preparations for the new Act which as you know is intended to start on 1 July.

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Reform updates’, ‘Cathy Milfull, Thin Markets Branch’, ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘www.health.gov.au’]

All right. So to get started with today’s updates the team are just going to bring up our usual roadmap for you. So basically this is our usual roadmap. You can see here we’ve just updated it to reflect where we’re at in the reform schedule. There’s a blue star sitting there just to reflect that our most recent update really has been to extend the 24/7 registered nursing trial to all MPS sites. So many thanks again to everyone for being involved in that. We really appreciate it and do note that everyone’s participation in the trial will help ensure a better outcome when we actually roll out 24/7 registered nursing formally.

You can see the next main if you like milestone after that obviously alongside the new Act for 1 July is that we have our new MPS Agreements in place. Also for 1 July we still intend to release a new MPS Policy Manual. Our working group members for MPS have already been provided with an early version of that but we will certainly circulate that more broadly once we have finalised a more comprehensive version and once we have updated that to reflect all the rules that have been coming out in draft and are in the process of being finalised.

I just wanted to say while we’ve got this screen up today that obviously beyond July I’ve put the dates in red and that’s just because a lot of those milestones really could shift based on availability of required resources and ICT changes. But our aim is to give you as much notice about what is to come. So at the moment there’s no changes to that including after the Budget last night but we do hope by mid-year we’ll be able to give you a bit more confirmation about whether those dates will hold or whether there needs to be a bit of a shift. So probably watch this space in about May or June and we’ll provide an updated version of this schedule.

All right. So the next slide just touches base on our new MPSP Agreements. Good news is we are reasonably on schedule. Just a little bit behind with some providers and jurisdictions needing a little bit of extra time to comment on our draft templates. And that’s not surprising with some recent cyclone activity. But as much as possible we really need to finalise those templates this month with the aim that we send them out in April for signature so they can be signed, executed and we’re all ready to go on 1 July 2025. So really appreciate everyone assisting to keep us on target with this schedule.

All right. Next up. I know this is not strictly MPSP related but I just wanted to flag in case anyone had any questions later as well that you might be aware that on the 10th of March Minister Butler actually announced an update to what’s known as the MMM classification system. This is what’s called a no losers update which basically means it looked at the more current census data and looked at if there are any locations based on that data have actually become more remote since we did the last MMM update. So those locations, 17 of them, the aim of this update is to increase their MMM classification level. There will be no changes made to decrease anyone’s remoteness classification even if the data suggests that. So that’s what we mean by this no losers update. 

So I just wanted to flag that if you look at the Health website you’ll see that those changes are live if you like however there’s a phased approach to implementation of those changes in terms of how they affect our Health and Aged Care programs. So you’ll see on the website the date of the 13th of April which is effectively the date that the changes are in effect for our Health workforce programs. Our Aged Care programs are expected to follow behind but via a phased approach. So we will confirm those exact timeframes for you as soon as we can. But some Aged Care programs as you’re aware will need some legislative and system changes in order to implement those changes. So that’s why we just need to confirm the exact date for you.

All right. The next slide. I just wanted to flag that MMM update that I was talking about then is just a partial update and as mentioned it’s really about data. So it’s not actually looking at how the MMM works or it’s not addressing some of the concerns that some people on this call and other rural and remote stakeholders have raised with my team around how the MMM works in aged care. So I just wanted to reassure everybody that while that update has occurred, our sort of broader MMM review, so how the MMM works for aged care, is still continuing. So I’ve just included this slide today just to give you an idea of the goals of that review and I guess give you some assurance that that is continuing and this is really the vehicle through which we will consider whether we need a different approach or to vary our approach in terms of how we use the MMM to inform things in aged care, like for example eligibility for particular programs or actually how much a provider gets paid for a certain thing in a certain region.

All right. So the next slide just gives you a bit of a timeline so you can see how our MMM review is progressing. The important thing to take away here is that it’s next month, so in April that we’ll actually be formally starting consultations on the review. Some of you might be aware we’ve been doing some informal consultations with some visits to for example Broken Hill and Kalgoorlie. But we’re now actually starting the formal consultation process. So we actually have a website up and running which you can take a look at and very soon we will be releasing on that page a survey that everyone is going to be able to do and provide submissions. So the aim of this is to ensure that everybody has a chance to comment if they want to about this MMM review. So there will be some more site visits as you can see here. We’ll also be doing some interviews with key stakeholder groups. But we also want to open this up more broadly to make sure everyone has a chance to comment. And thanks team. I can see you’ve just put the link for the web page in the chat so if anyone wants to click on that and have a look it’s there for you.

All right. Next little update was just to let everyone know that round three of ACCAP, the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program, is now open. So we had flagged before that there was an opportunity coming but just to clarify applications are now open and my team have also put a link to the relevant grant opportunity in the chat. So again there’s now $300 million available in grant funding. Just flagging that applications are open ‘til the 20th of May and that like last time obviously the focus is really on upgrading residential based aged care services in regional, rural and remote Australia. But importantly there’s also a staff accommodation stream again in this round so that’s designed to basically ensure providers can get some assistance to build staff accommodation which we consistently hear as a main issue or blocker to workforce retention. So hopefully that’s positive news. Just a reminder too on the right of this slide that where you’re a Government MPS provider there is a co-contribution expected so we’ll need to see that reflected in your application.

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Release 4a of the Rules’, ‘Cathy Milfull, Thin Markets Branch’] 

All right. So that’s really our key updates for today. We’ll move on to talk about tranche 4a of the Rules which has now been released for consultation with the consultation period open for four weeks until the 11th of April 2025. So the team, they’re going to put the links again for you in the chat. Today is really just to – I know sometimes looking at those rules it can be a bit overwhelming and sometimes you don’t know what to look at and what’s relevant. So the aim today is just to give you an overview of what’s relevant in the context of you as a provider at an MPS and what’s not and to talk through I guess in practical terms what are the implications of these things and where things are different. And that way you can ask us any questions today, or if questions arise when you’re looking at the draft later you can always send it through to the team at our mailbox.

So on the screen here just to flag really these are the topics that are covered in tranche 4a and you can see on the right we’ve just tried to really make it clear for you in red which things are relevant to you if you’re delivering services through an MPS. So where it’s in red we’ll try and talk through those in more detail today in a second. The ones that really are not relevant just to make it clear upfront are you’ll see in this tranche some notification requirements, so where mainstream providers have an obligation to tell the Department if they start or stop services. At the moment that doesn’t apply to MPS so don’t worry about that. Similarly there’s some obligations around quality indicators and registered nursing but obviously at the moment they don’t apply to MPS either.

So that’s what you don’t need to worry about. Now we’ll go on to talk about the ones that do apply to MPSP. All right. So we’re starting with place allocations. So again we’ve just got a little bit of a table here. So if you’re looking at the rules these are the sections that you want to take a look at together with the Act to work out what applies in terms of place allocation under the MPSP. But I’ll now just go through each of those in detail so that you understand what it means in practice.

So the first thing we’re just going to talk about is when does a place come into effect. So I guess just to put this in the context of the current world, when residential care places are allocated to a provider, at the moment you would note that we normally allocate them in what we call a provisional manner, and that’s because generally speaking sometimes the beds that relate to those places won’t actually be ready to go. A provider might be doing capital upgrades and so actually the relevant wing for example, the MPS hasn’t been built yet. So we allocate them to you in a provisional status until they’re ready to go and actually be used for services. So just so everyone understands in the new world provisional if you like doesn’t exist. Instead we just have the concept of places being in effect or out of effect. 

So what this slide here is showing you is that the rules basically explain when a place will come into effect for the first time if you like. And for that to happen the provider needs to be registered. There needs to be an MPSP Agreement in place with the Commonwealth. It needs to be less than five years since the place was allocated. So basically you’ve got five years in order to make a place bed ready if you like. After that the allocation will cease. And then the important one here which is very similar to the current world is that the system governor needs to be satisfied that it’s bed ready to be used for the delivery of care. So very similar to the current world there will be a revised bed ready process in place from 1 July which you can use to make a request for a place to come into effect. This process is still being confirmed but it’s expected to mirror the current arrangements at this stage and so it would normally involve some discussions between the provider and the Department’s local network in your state or territory.

As on the screen here once that new place is in effect and the MPSP Agreement has been varied to reflect this the place is then able to be used in your subsidy calculation, so you’ll be funded for that place.

Okay. The next slide then just tells you when does a place go out of effect. So you’ll see in the rules that that can happen on a temporary or a permanent basis. On a temporary basis the circumstances if you like where this could happen is that basically the Secretary, the system governor, or really the Department agrees with a provider that they do not have the capacity to deliver services using a place. Now that I don’t mean that your bed’s going to be empty. I mean that basically for example an MPS comes to my team and says ‘We’re not going to be using that whole aged care wing for 12 months because we’re doing renovations’. In that sense you actually cannot use that place even if you wanted to. So that’s what we need to know about and in that case we would make an agreement with you as to a temporary period for which those places would be out of effect or if you like offline.

The only other circumstance in this space is where basically the provider’s actually suspended by the regulator or has some kind of condition placed on their registration by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission which means that again for some reason it restricts the services that they can provide and they can’t actually use that place at all. But I just wanted to say to everyone this really isn’t any different to the current world. It’s expressed a bit differently but it’s effectively the same. This is really a matter of discussions with the provider except in that case of regulatory action and we wouldn’t take a place temporarily out of effect without discussing that with you and making sure that everyone’s in agreement with that.

All right. So this slide just clarifies the other scenario where a place permanently ceases and basically that will be obviously not surprisingly if the MPS ceases to exist for some reason, obviously we wouldn’t continue funding those places. The other one is there might be an agreement between the provider and the Department to relinquish the place. So a provider might come to the Department and say ‘Actually I’m never going to use those five places again. Can I give them back?’ That can happen. The only thing is the Secretary needs to agree to that and we will only agree to that once we make sure that any obligations related to continuity of service have been met. So basically that you’ve made arrangements for any people that were using those places to have found new arrangements that are suitable for their needs.

The last thing on this slide is just that a Secretary can also revoke the place but that power is limited to where it hasn’t been used…

…with relevant providers and the jurisdiction first, and I consider that would be something that would be a very rare occurrence. So again it’s actually not really any different to the current world.

Next slide please. So this slide just talks about conditions on places. Sorry. Back one I think. So just clarifying that the new rules explain a bit more clearly I think the conditions that are placed on allocated places automatically under the legislation. So basically you’ll see at the top here that relates to where the place is used if you like. So this really mirrors current arrangements in that for residential care the place must be used at the specified approved residential home. And so that’s the home or the MPS that we would specify in our notice of allocation to you. Also that of course would be reflected in your MPS Agreement in the schedule at the back where we have the tables of the places and where they are intended to be used.

For a home or community setting we have made the legislation a little bit more flexible. That is to start to make some changes that we’ve been discussing with the MPS working group but these changes can’t be fully implemented until the MPSP funding model review continues. But the aim is basically just to give us a bit more flexibility into where those home support places can be used. So they still need to be used through the relevant MPS but basically we can actually specify the location that they’re used and the aim of that is to give a bit more flexibility but also just makes a bit more sense in practice because we realise you’re not actually using those places physically at the MPS. You’re using it in surrounding regions.

So I think that’s the main thing there. I did just want to say there is also a condition on providers to advise the Secretary when they are unable to use a place for more than 12 months and that really just aligns with those other arrangements around places that I was talking to you a minute ago.

So moving on now around ceasing service delivery under the MPS. Again we’ve just got a table here to help you if you’re looking at the rules in more detail so you know which sections to look at. But we’ll go on now to explain each of these bits in a bit more detail.

So when can you cease home or community services? So you’ll see the rules actually outline the circumstances in which this can occur. And basically we’ve got them listed there but obviously it’s really circumstances where obviously the person doesn’t want the services anymore, they no longer need them, they wish to move to a different location, but there’s also some other relevant circumstances there. And the rules just provide that basically you still need to give a person 14 days’ notice before ceasing services but that can occur in any of those circumstances.

The next slide just talks about this same thing if you like but in a residential care context. So it shows you what is in the rules about when you can actually ask an older person who is a resident to leave your MPS. And basically that’s where there’s suitable alternative accommodation available for them, you’ve given the necessary notice, and one of the circumstances on the screen applies. So again that really mirrors the current world. Also at the bottom there you’ll just see that there needs to be a continuity of care plan in place and as with the current world obviously it’s important that an incoming provider is given any records relating to the person.

The next one that you’ll see in the rules is obligations relating to when you can move an individual, so a resident from a room or a part of a room. And it actually sets out some circumstances in which you could do that. Now this is a bit new and I don’t believe we’ve discussed it before. So I did just want to flag really interested for your feedback on this one. If you are concerned by it please let us know. Sing out in the chat or separately or raise with your jurisdiction. We can certainly provide feedback on that but just be good to know if you see any potential difficulties with this in an MPS as opposed to a mainstream residential care home.

All right. Next up. Next topic of relevance in the rules is a section on record keeping. We’ve given the section number there. Look this really just outlines – I won’t go into too much detail but basically it just covers the records that need to be kept. It involves Service Agreements for example, care and services plans, medical records. If you are charging accommodation payments then details about those charges. And also Accommodation Agreements. We’ll probably talk to you about this a bit more at the next webinar however. I think probably the main thing that’s going to be relevant here is Service Agreements and obligations around Service Agreements will actually be covered in the final tranche of the rules 4b. We’ve had a bit of an initial chat with the working group about this but I think it will be important for everyone to have a look at the details of what those Service Agreements are expected to look like and make sure that we’re all comfortable with that working in an MPS context.

Just wanted to point out in advance too that the general principle is that Service Agreements and care plans will need to be updated every 12 months or when requested by an older person.

All right. So almost there. Last rules topic for today and it’s one that we have talked about before so I won’t go into too much detail. You might remember that earlier rules tranches covered the service fees that you can charge under the MPSP. Now this part of the rules covers those accommodation payments that we’ve talked about previously. Again we’ve just got a table here that explains the relevant sections in the rules if you want to have a closer look. But now I’ll just move on to quickly talk about what’s covered in those sections.

So in practice basically this part of the rules means that as we’ve discussed before really an MPS is able to charge an accommodation payment where the client is not eligible for Government assistance. They cannot charge what’s known as an accommodation contribution and they must have an Accommodation Agreement. So that’s really no different to the current world. The new Act and rules are not changing that. What’s a bit different in the Act and the rules is that a provider must have a financial hardship policy, that you need to make this available to a client that you believe is experiencing financial hardship, and then you need to – which I think would be understandable – comply with your own policy. So probably the difference here is it does give you a bit of flexibility to reduce the accommodation payment if there’s a financial hardship scenario as long as you’ve outlined that in your own policy.

So I probably won’t go into more detail on that now but just a reminder that if you do charge an accommodation payment there are separate reporting requirements and that the person can pay that in really two forms, either as a refundable accommodation deposit which is known as a RAD, so basically via a lump sum or via a daily accommodation payment, often referred to as a DAP. So that’s where the person just pays a daily fee for the accommodation price. So I’ll leave that there but if there are any questions please feel free to let us know.

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Update on client and provider deeming’, ‘Cathy Milfull, Thin Markets Branch’]

All right. So you may be relieved to know that’s the end of the rules discussion. So lastly I just wanted to touch base on where we’re up to with transitionals before I open it up for questions. And particularly transitionals, I know we’ve talked about this a few times but if people are still confused or still have questions please feel free to ask them today. So this slide just gives you an update on transitional arrangements in terms of provider traditional arrangements. So I just wanted to flag that each provider should now have received a contact nomination request form from my colleagues. This will ask you to confirm your contact details and this will open up in April to the deeming preview that we’ve talked about where basically you’ll be invited to check your details as a provider and importantly check the registration categories that we’re going to deem you to be registered in, so that if you want to you can opt out of any of those categories. So nothing has changed there and that work is still upcoming in April.

Next I just wanted to flag though – and some of you would be aware of this – not only do we need to deem each MPS provider over as a registered provider, we need to work out which sites if you like, which MPS we will deem to be residential care homes as of 1 July 2025. So in order to facilitate this my team you might be aware has done a bit of a census and what they’re trying to work out really is there a one to one relationship. So are there 20 MPS that need to become 20 residential care homes or are some of those MPS sites actually split. So you might for example have three addresses at which you’re delivering residential care services because you might have a high care resi facility and a low care hostel for example and another service. So that’s what we’re trying to work out here because we need to work out in the new world is that one residential care home or is it in fact three residential care homes in which case we need to work that out quite quickly.

So you can just see there’s some graphs my team have provided at the bottom which is the results of their census. So you can see on the left that this really mainly affects WA and South Australia who have the majority of MPS that operate across in a sort of split address scenario and there’s a few of these cases in Victoria and Queensland. Overall I understand there’s 220 buildings used to deliver services but we just need to work out the nature of those arrangements and what makes sense in the new world. On the right it just shows you the nature of the arrangements and you can see as expected it’s quite diverse in the context of the MPSP program. But basically we’re interested in the ones on the right of that dotted line where there’s some kind of standalone facility that’s not on the same grounds as the healthcare services if you like. That’s where we need to consider how we operationalise your residential care home from 1 July.

So I’ll leave that for now and just lastly touch base on client transitional arrangements. So just flagging that you might remember we emailed all providers on the 4th of March asking for your advice in relation to pre-populated workbooks, hard copy consent materials and nominated staff that would return the workbooks to us once completed through the Department’s secure portal. It’s taken a couple of weeks to put all that together but we are on track we believe. So many thanks to everybody. We appreciate that this is a difficult task and can be a tad frustrating so we appreciate you engaging with the team.

For those of you who’ve requested hard copies of some of the materials we’re hoping that those will be with you by the end of next week. Also just wanted to flag that a further email was sent on the 24th of March to those MPS staff nominated to return the workbooks. So please if there are any further issues with the information that was provided or you’re having issues in terms of accessing the portal please reach out to the team. But look I won’t talk about that any more today. I might just leave it for questions.

So I’m not seeing any questions in the chat at the moment.

If anyone has any questions please sing out now. In the meantime I might just get Roger to let you know – I think Roger you were going to still talk about a possible further webinar just for the staff that are helping us with those workbooks to talk through any issues with you in more detail. Did you just want to mention that while we wait for any questions? 

Roger Hunt:

Yes. Thanks Cathy and good afternoon everyone. So maybe I’ll just touch on a few related matters just before I get into the webinar. So Cathy mentioned the email of a couple of days ago and that was an email to those people for whom providers have nominated at this point as either an uploader or an approver. Since the email went out there have been a number of enquiries and questions which is great. And it’s become probably – sorry. For those of you who are online now and who were also part of that group of nominees who were getting that information you might have noticed that one of the files, in fact the file that I pointed to in the first instance as being one you should look at, did mention the possibility of having a webinar, the purpose of which really just to have assisted to answer your questions about access to the data portal and completing the workbooks and so on. And I was flagging that for the second week of April but I think just given the number of enquiries and the number of people that are now involved – I mean we’ve got more than 100 persons from across the MPS sector involved in the population of these workbooks and returning them to us so it’s a lot of people – so we want to make sure we can deal with as many issues as we can. And we think probably in the first instance we want to do it as soon as possible. 

And I do understand that the Queensland school holidays might be beginning in the second week of April so I think it would be great if we can have a conversation, have a discussion. Pretty much would be that kind of format, a question and answer kind of format, and do that towards the end of next week. So first week of April, not the second week. So it’s my intention to get out an email to that effect tomorrow with an invitation to each of you, that’s to each of you who are on the nominated persons list that I have, but also to those who provided the names in the first instance, so if you like contact persons. Now some of those contact persons – I’m calling them contact persons – someone within the provider entity who provided to me a list of names. Now you might have been within the list of names yourself or you might be a separate person. But I’ll include you in that email as well tomorrow so that everybody’s on the same page.

Just quickly I want to just – for everybody’s benefit I suppose just want to make a couple of things as clear as I can. And I was just mentioning a moment ago those contact persons, the persons that provided the nominees to me. So it’s going to be important just to have a bit of an understanding of how this access to the data portal is going to come about. So let me just quickly talk about that. So the persons nominated – and I’ve been referring to them as uploaders and approvers – you’ll see from the guidance that was provided on Monday that you need to establish a profile and once you’ve done that the Government’s broader systems will enable you to get into the back door of – well in fact in your case it’s the front door of the health data portal. And that’s the way it’s done. So that’s done through a combination of name and email, the name and email that you use to create your myID profile if that’s the way that you do it.

But once you’ve done that we here in the MPS section need to link you to folders, your own folder within the health data portal and those folders have been created by a separate team, that’s the Health Data Portal Team, and that team are the ones who – I mean they’re a specialist team. That’s all they do. They look after the health data portal. So they have a role here at the moment in doing what they can to assist me assist you gain access to the health data portal. But I do need to know when it is that you have access because it then becomes our job in the MPS section to link your name to the folder through a file permission. So what I’m going to suggest is that – and I’ll put this in the email that goes out tomorrow – is that either the contact persons, again those that provided the initial response to me, and/or people who are the nominated persons reply to our section – use the MPS Reforms inbox – and confirm that they have access to health data portal. And once you’ve done that I can then go into the health data portal and link you to your particular folder. Hopefully that makes sense. Kind of a longwinded way of saying it but there’s kind of a two stage process and again I’ll just spell that out in the email tomorrow and hopefully that just makes it a little bit clearer for you here today how that’s all going to work.

What else? 

Cathy Milfull:

So we’ll get the email out soon and everyone hopefully – so hopefully end of next week. But if you’ve got questions please put them in the chat now so Rog can answer, or also Rog I’m sure you’re happy to get anything via email so that we can put them all together and make sure that session next week covers off any outstanding questions where possible. We really want to support you all where we can.

All right. Well look I might just answer – there’s two questions in the chat around place allocation. So I might answer those now. But if there’s any other client deeming type questions we’ll go back to Rog before the end. So just two questions. One was a good question. Thanks Francesca. About flexibly using places between home and residential care. I just wanted to flag there’s no intention to stop that or break that if you like and we’ll make that clear in our policy manual that’s coming as well. I think basically what it means is the aim is that – we’ll have things in your agreement and we’ll make sure this works when we transition your places across – that those places if you like, where you use them for residential care you’ll need to use them in the home and where you use them in the home you’ll need to use them in the specified location. But no problems with mixing and matching if you like. That’s fine. That’s not changing so don’t be concerned about that. We understand that that’s very important in the context of the MPSP.

The other sort of I think related question from Kylie, and I’ll just check that I’m answering this correctly, was effectively more about the difference between bed numbers and places. So as some of you would be aware moving forward in time for some time now we have not allocated more places than there are actual matching beds if you like. But that’s historically not the case. I just wanted to flag that we are transitioning all your existing places over if you like whether they have a matching bed or not. So we’re not changing the status quo if you like. So to your question Kylie no that’s not going to result in a reduction in any way. You’ll still have your places. That’s not changing at this point. And when we’re talking about some of those obligations I was talking about, as I mentioned it’s not really about whether you’re using the bed or not because we know that one of the features of the MPS Program is to maintain certainty of funding and that you get paid for your allocated beds regardless of whether you use them or not if you like. But the question is really I would say can you use them. So if you have a situation moving forward where it's not possible then that’s what we’re looking at. But we do realise there’s a historical situation that at the moment is not going to change and that will be considered more in the context of the MPSP funding review.

All right. What other things? I think Rog there’s a few comments around a nominated folder in the data portal for Portland Tabulam. So we can probably get that sorted out.

From Sarah.

Q:        I can’t do the organisation link though I could create a profile for myself.

So we can perhaps take that one offline with Sarah.

Laura mentioned the instruction does not include setting up the staff on the RAM to the portal.

Roger Hunt:

I might just quickly sort of have a quick go at those thanks Cathy. So thanks Nicole. So just regarding the folder, just for everybody’s benefit, as I mentioned the Health Data Portal Team are establishing the folders. Over the last couple of weeks there’s been a bit of reorganisation and some changing requests from providers. So there’s been a bit of rejigging in the background about folders. But they are being created as we speak and as soon as they’re completed, and that should be probably by the end of Friday I suspect, and again once we know that you have a confirmed access we’ll be linking you to the folders. So all good Nicole. That shouldn’t be too far away.

Sarah just on yours, the organisation link, it might be useful please, just put your question in writing, and if you can include a screenshot that’s going to help as well. And I’ll get that question through to the health data portal. That might be one for those folks. And Laura similarly for yours. I note the email that went out on Monday did have some information about setting up your organisation in the RAM but your question is slightly more nuanced so perhaps again if you can send a screenshot or attach a screenshot to your email where that’s been attempted we’ll be able to deal with that as well. So please send that through.

Cathy Milfull:

Thanks Rog. Awesome. And another question from Francesca about the difference between accommodation payment and accommodation contribution which is a good question. I think Francesca the way the current legislative framework works is there’s two different concepts, an accommodation payment and an accommodation contribution. And those concepts are really replicated in the new world. Accommodation payment is basically where there’s an accommodation price for the room and the person goes to Services Australia, they get their means assessment, and they’re not eligible for any Government assistance if you like, they can be charged the whole price for that room that they’ve agreed with, that’s already been published and is in their agreement. So that’s accommodation payment. So I think the easiest way to think about it is the full charge is made. 

There is provision in the legislation in the mainstream residential world but not for MPS at the moment where there can be a thing called accommodation contribution which as the name kind of suggests means the person would pay some of that amount but not the full amount. And that’s where basically the means test from Services Australia indicates the person is entitled to some assistance and therefore there’s if you like a reduction of that price. So that actually doesn’t exist in the MPS world at the moment and it won’t exist either post 1 July. So that’s a specific thing for mainstream residential care. But what we will have in the new world is this ability to still at the discretion of the provider reduce the accommodation payment if you feel that’s warranted based on your policy because of financial hardship reasons. So that opens up a little bit of flexibility for you there. 

So that’s where we’ve landed for the moment. Keen to get your feedback if you think that’s going to cause any problems. Longer term I note that my team will be looking at this more broadly as part of the MPSP funding review. We still want to reconsider co-contributions for clients in MPSP. As you’ve probably heard me talk about before the Royal Commission when they did their report a while back now, they raised some concerns about co-contributions not aligning between mainstream and MPS. We want to address those concerns but the reality is as well it is complex partly because of the way MPS are funded but also some of you would be aware that in the mainstream world clients can get access through Services Australia to kind of like a financial hardship support payment. That’s not available in an MPS context. So we need to balance these things and work out something that works in the MPS context. So we want to do that in the context of the MPS funding review to make sure we’re considering it holistically. But that is a long way of answering your question Francesca.

All right. Team I don’t think we have any more questions unless I’ve missed anything. So I might give everyone a couple of minutes back in their day but thank you very much for listening. Roger will obviously be in touch regarding an additional little practical webinar for those who want some more hints and tips around the portal. But as I said still lots going on. I appreciate that’s a lot of detail today. So if you have any other questions please feel free to send them through out of session. Otherwise we will be back with our next webinar in April which will focus on regulation, and as I mentioned we will hopefully have our colleagues from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission along so you can hear directly from them regarding the new regulatory model and how they will approach regulatory matters from 1 July.

So thanks everyone for listening Really appreciate it. Bye.

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