AHPA provided a submission to the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority in response to their Aged Care Pricing Framework Consultation Paper of August 2022. AHPA’s submission focused on the allied health-related issues that we consider should be addressed and included in the Pricing Framework.
We contended that the current state of allied health provision in residential aged care is fundamentally at odds with the principle that funding should remain closely aligned to the care that is required and provided.
Specifically, we argue that the value of the National Weighted Activity Unit (NWAU) and associated Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) weightings must reflect the true cost of allied health needs, and should also be aligned with reporting mechanisms for activity data, benchmarks and standards that inform the allied health components of any costing studies that are undertaken.