Village operators need to be aware of the log jam occurring in home care delivery.

Over the 13 weeks of July to September over 40,000 new requests for home care were fielded by the Department of Social Services under its new process of all requests going through its web portal myagedcare.

The referrals from GPs, hospital’s etc. first go to myagedcare and then to a Regional Assessment team and once approved to a panel of home care operators. In Week One just 585 made it through the system but by Week 13 it reached 4,500 a week. A massive number and an achievement by DSS. However they point out that by that time only 39% of home care providers had set themselves up in the system to receive the referrals.

They can’t get the business any other way and the ‘clients’ can’t get the service. A lose/lose result.

DSS has 230 contact staff in their call centre to take the referral enquiry as well.