The government proposes to release 24,100 new Home Care Packages in 2024-25 to help reduce the waiting times to access Home Care. The waiting times have started to increase again, with lengthy delays for Level 3 (12-15 months) and Level 4 (6-9 months). Whilst the proposed further packages will assist to reduce waiting times, the wait is still expected to remain around 6 months. And then there are problems with finding a care provider who can deliver the services required.

What does this mean for older Australians? You need to be proactive and when you notice changes to your daily routines, start investigating what support is available and register with My Aged Care. Don’t wait until it becomes a significant problem as it might be too late at that time.

We were expecting the New Aged Care Act to commence on 1 July 2024. However this has been delayed and is now proposed to commence on 1 July 2025.

Aged care providers continue to struggle with meeting the increasing costs and demands for care, and they are disappointed by the lack of insight from the government in relation to funding. The Aged Care Taskforce delivered a report in December 2023 with 23 recommendations to help with financial viability of aged care into the future. But the Government was silent in the Budget on funding issues.

What does this mean for older Australians? At the moment there is no change to aged care fees (either in Home Care or Residential Care).

However, with an ageing population and higher costs to deliver care, significant funding needs to be injected into the system. The question is where will these funds come from - the taxpayer, the resident or both? We might have more details when draft legislation for the Aged Care Act is introduced into Parliament later this year. We anticipate that fees for people accessing care will be higher.

In a good news story, the deeming rates will remain frozen for another 12 months until 30 June 2025. Changes to deeming have been frozen for the past two years and this has been extended for another year. There was concern that an increase in these rates would impact pensioners and potentially reduce age pension entitlements in a period where cost of living is already presenting challenges.

For renters who receive income support payments from Centrelink or Veterans’ Affairs, the government proposes to increase the maximum rate of rent assistance by 10% from 20 September 2024. This is aimed at helping reduce cost of living pressures.

From 20 March 2025, the existing 25 hour per week participation limit for Carer Payment recipients will be amended to 100 hours over a four-week period. The participation limit will no longer capture study, volunteering activities and travel time and will only apply to paid employment.

This will allow Carers more flexibility to undertake part-time work without impacting their entitlements.

The government proposed a five-year freeze on indexing the co-payment for medicines for pensioners and other concession card holders. This will keep the maximum co-payment for PBS medicines at $7.70.