What it is: Residential Aged Care (RAC) provides live-in care for people requiring full time assistance, particularly professional nursing care. People generally move into the RAC facility on a full-time basis but short-term residential respite care is also available. [2] While the Government pays most of the costs to the RAC service provider, each person pays a contribution to the service based on an asset and income means tested basis. All fees are regulated and the contribution by the person is fixed and must be paid, either fortnightly or monthly to cover all the services received.
For RAC the service provider ‘owns’ the places and the associated funds, and the person must find a RAC service that has vacancies and is appropriate for them.
Access: Before accessing a Commonwealth funded residential aged care service a person must register with MyAgedCare. Following registration a member of the Aged Care Assessment Team (ACAT) arranges to come to the person’s home or hospital to undertake a comprehensive assessment to determine eligibility for receiving aged care services.
The assessment is undertaken by asking a range of questions relating to personal health and safety, physical capacity, life style, ongoing medical conditions, existing support structure, the living environment and so on. Eligibility for residential aged care is determined by the assessor after considering all this information.
The MyAgedCare website can help locate possible aged care homes in a desired location, and websites of independent organisations can also be consulted for advice on selecting an aged care home. Dementia Australia and Choice have useful information and advice in choosing a facility. My Aged Care provides a list of questions that could be asked when deciding on a RAC provider. [2]
Page created 06 July 2020