Privatised aged care assessments a dangerous and costly proposal

The AMA’s submission to in-home aged care consultation calls for plans to privatise aged care assessments to be abandoned.

Last week the AMA provided a submission to a consultation on in-home aged care assessments initiated by the Department of Health and Aged Care.

The consultation looks into new models of providing in-home care, but also re-introduces the concept of ‘independent aged care assessments’. The AMA submission argued strongly against this proposal, calling for aged care assessments to remain within the public hospital system. 

The AMA sees this as another attempt to privatise aged care assessments and give them over to private providers. The AMA has continuously argued the proposed ‘independent assessor’ approach has the potential to further fragment care for older people, which could lead to increased and prolonged hospital stays for many of them.

It has been the AMA’s ongoing position that the aged care assessment service for older people with complex health and aged care needs must remain with state and territory health services and their respective aged care assessment teams (ACATs).

Despite underfunding and the large volume of work they undertake most ACATs work well and meet their key performance indicators. ACATs provide medical expertise in assessments, as well as baseline clinical data for subsequent clinical monitoring and evaluation of patient outcomes.

The AMA’s submission to the Department of Health and Aged Care consultation can be viewed here: https://www.ama.com.au/articles/ama-submission-new-program-home-aged-care-consultation