What is My Aged Care?
My Aged Care is an Australian Government website (myagedcare.gov.au) and national phone line (1800 200 422) providing up-to-date information about aged care and healthy and active living. It assists people to navigate the aged care system and can provide referrals for assessment and service provision.
The My Aged Care phone line is open from 8 am to 8 pm, Monday to Friday and from 10 am to 2 pm on Saturdays, throughout Australia.
My Aged Care provides:
- referrals for assessment and service provision
- up-to-date information on Commonwealth funded aged care services in each local area
- information about aged care fees and charges
- support for people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse communities
- information about healthy and active living
- information about carer support services.
Your pathway to accessing a home care package (pol. Jak uzyskać dostęp do pakietu opieki domowej?)
Your guide to commonwealth home support programme services (pol. Twój przewodnik na temat Wspólnotowego Programu Usług Wsparcia w Domu)
Accessing aged care
In order for older people to receive aged care services, they will need to be referred for an assessment. The type of assessment they will require is dependent on the services they need to access:
- an Aged Care Assessment Team (ACAT) assessment is needed if a patient requires access to a Home Care Package, Transition Care, residential care or residential respite
- https://www.myagedcare.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-04/acat-assessments-polish.pdfhttps://www.myagedcare.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-04/how-assessment-works-polish.pdf
- a Regional Assessment Service (RAS) assessment is needed if the patient requires Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP) services.
Completing and sending referrals
- To refer patients to My Aged Care for an assessment, use the health professional web form.
- The webform can be accessed via the ‘Contact Us’ page on the My Aged Care website or www.myagedcare.gov.au/referral.
- You can also refer your patient by calling the My Aged Care contact centre (1800 200 422) or fax a referral to the contact centre on 1800 728 174. The My Aged Care contact centre will not acknowledge receipt of faxed referrals.
- The health professional webform has advantages over fax:
- you will receive confirmation that My Aged Care has the referral
- you will receive a confirmation number that will allow you to follow-up on the referral
- more efficient and enhanced processing of the referral
- you can print and save a copy of the form as a PDF.
- For verification purposes, when completing any referral for aged care, please ensure that the patient’s name (first and last) matches the name on their Medicare card. Medicare details should include the Medicare card number as well as the individual reference number (IRN). If a patient does not have a Medicare number, please provide their Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) number.
- If you are faxing a referral, please enter as much patient information as possible. Fax one referral at a time and only re-fax if your fax machine has indicated a transmission error.
Following up on referrals
- You can follow-up on referrals you’ve made by calling the My Aged Care contact centre.
- The easiest way to follow-up on a referral is for the referrer to provide the contact centre with the confirmation number received when the webform is submitted.
- If you made the referral by fax please have your details and patient’s details available.
- Please wait at least 48 hours after you have submitted the referral before following up to ensure that processing has commenced.
Accessing urgent services
- There are specific circumstances where health professionals will need to directly refer a patient to a service provider. This includes when:
- there is an urgent need for a service based on the patient’s circumstances which, if not met immediately, may place the patient at risk
- the services where this is likely to happen are: nursing, personal care, meals and transport.
- These services would be of a time-limited duration with a longer term commitment only occurring after assessment.
Referrals to urgent services
- The preferred method for health professionals to access urgent services is by contacting the service provider directly. The service provider will, if able, provide urgent care for the patient and subsequently refer the patient to My Aged Care for an assessment of ongoing service needs.
- Health professionals can also call the My Aged Care contact centre. The contact centre can make an electronic referral to services as well as concurrently referring the patient to the appropriate assessment.
- If a referral is made directly to a service provider, acceptance of the referral for urgent care will be based on the provider’s capacity to take on new clients and the relative needs of clients awaiting services.
For more information please visit:
https://www.myagedcare.gov.au/
Information in Polish: