These relate to residential aged care and in 2015 changes will occur for community aged care.

The biggest change is the removal of the high and low level distinction for people entering care.

This means people will be assessed as simply needing residential care when they have an Aged Care Assessment.

All people entering aged care will pay a bond if they have the financial means to do so.

DHS (Centrelink) will undertake a means test covering both income and assets to determine how much of a contribution to their accommodation a resident who is entitled to government support will be required to pay.

Consumers will have 28 days after they enter care to advise the facility how they wish to pay that bond – as a fully refundable deposit, as a daily payment or as a combination.

Aged care providers will no longer be able to charge a retention for any part of the bond.

The government has separated accommodation pricing from care pricing and facilities have had to set a price on the type of accommodation and services they are offering and publish that price as well as the bond price on the new My Aged Care website, their own website and in any literature they have such as resident handbooks.

Care pricing is determined by clinical assessments that are completed by the nursing staff and submitted to Medicare who then pay a subsidy dependent on the level of assessed care.

There is an annual and lifetime cap for means tested fees.

All these changes only affect people entering care after July 1.

Just like any business, aged care providers need to work smarter so they can still provide services, remain competitive and meet the needs of their local communities.

Lara Aged Care has proudly served the Dungog region for 25 years and over the last year has commenced some wonderful new projects.

Legislation deemed we needed to retrofit fire sprinklers as an addition to our fire protection system.

This has been a massive project which will be completed during the next month.

The hostel bathrooms required an upgrade so the residents could maintain their independence, age in place and staff could provide care safely.

By the end of September this large project will result in light filled, spacious and modern ensuites in every hostel room.

The board and manager have designed a project to convert the five, two-bed rooms to single rooms with ensuites and build ensuites in the three single rooms that don’t currently have their own bathroom.

To do this we will utilise the currently underdeveloped area beneath Rosewood and we are now working with architects to develop plans ready for staff consultation.

This means Lara Aged Care will offer large single ensuited-rooms with wonderful outlooks to the Barringtons throughout the facility.

The board has also accepted a quote for a generator which will provide power to the whole facility during a power outage.

These projects will ensure Lara Aged Care continues to provide best practice residential aged care to our local community for the next 25 years and more. – Kerri Wagner, manager