5. What does a Consumer Directed Care (CDC) Home Care Package mean?

Page 5 of 21

It’s essential you understand the concept of what Consumer Directed Care means because when you understand it, and I mean really understand Consumer Directed Care, you realise how much power the Government has given senior Australians and their adult children to negotiate better aged care services.

You can then exercise your new powers to gain better in home aged care outcomes… to live a better quality life at home for longer.

An Old School Approved Provider in home care Case Manager told us she tells her clients that:

“Consumer Directed Care is the Government paying for in home care services and if you want more, you pay extra”.

WRONG! That is what in home care has always been for the last 20 years. THAT IS NOT Consumer Directed Home Care.

Consumer Directed Care (CDC) is a major national reform of the aged care industry that started on 1 July 2015 and became fully operational on 27 February 2017 when the Elder was “directly assigned” their Home Care Package and given the power to transfer their Government funding to any Approved Provider who provides better quality Caregivers, better value, better service and more hours of in home care, paid for by the Federal Government. In other words, Government Funded seniors were given the power that self-funded seniors have always enjoyed.

Consumer Directed Care reforms have stripped power away from the Current Old School Approved Providers and given that same power and control to the consumer… to the Elder and his/her advocate or Enduring Guardian.

And like all areas of life, it’s the people who become educated and informed who are more likely to understand their rights and exercise the greatest control over the aged care solutions offered to them. They are the people who will benefit the most from these brilliant and empowering reforms.

So let’s look at how the Government describes Consumer Directed Care (CDC) then:

“Consumer Directed Care is … “a way of delivering services that allows them [consumers] to make choices about the types of aged care & services they access …including who will deliver them & when”.

Read how the Government defines Consumer Directed Care again!!! They are very powerful words.

SOURCE: Pg. 8 Home Care Packages Programme Guidelines, Department of Social Services, July 2014, re-issued 28/8/2014.

What did the Government forget to include in the definition of Consumer Directed Care?

The Government’s definition sounds like you have the power to do anything. In fact they should have added “within the rules of the Government’s Home Care Package Program.”

Consumer Directed Home Care (CDC) is designed to provide:

Better service;

More appropriate and higher quality in home aged care;

Better value for older Australians;

Better support, assistance and care to help Elders stay at home longer, or for life, rather than move into a nursing home; and

Give consumers more control over their in home care and therefore over their life.

Consumer Directed Care reforms are powerful reforms to empower our elderly Australians to live a better “older age”;

to be re-enabled after a health crisis;

to be supported, assisted and cared for when and how they need.

Daughterly Care has specialised in supporting private paying clients for 24 years.

Our private care clients have always:

• controlled their money;

• had the power to hire and fire their in home care provider, so we know how to give the great service that “empowered private paying clients” have always expected;

• decide when they want care;

• decide what type of support and care they need.

Old-School Approved Providers, who have dominated the in home care industry for the last 2 decades, don’t have the experience we have of servicing “empowered private paying clients” with high expectations.

That’s why every week since 27 February 2017 Elders have chosen to transfer their Government funded Home Care Package to a New Breed of Approved Provider like us – Daughterly Care Community Services – because they are tired of the poor service, and  lack of value they have been receiving. According to chartered accounting firm, Stewart Brown 9% of seniors have transferred their Home Care Package since 27 February 2017 as at October 2018.

From the 27th February 2017, every Government subsidised Home Care Package client now controls their Government funding so essentially they now have the same power that a private paying client has had because they now decide:

1. which Approved Provider holds their Government funding and manages their Home Care Package and if they are not satisfied with their Current Approved Provider then they can transfer their Government funding to a new Approved Provider who they believe will do a better job;

2. which Home Care Provider provides their in home care;

3. what type of in home care they receive;

4. when their in home care is received.

If you don’t know what your 9 New Rights are under the Living Longer, Living Better Consumer Directed Care reforms are, you won’t have the knowledge and personal power you need to negotiate better solutions for yourself, or your loved one.

Old School Approved Providers won’t tell you all your 9 New Rights because it diminishes their existing power. I know that first hand because my team and I have attended many client meetings with Old School Approved Providers and they did not act in alignment with the 9 New Rights.