ACFI - Aged Care Funding Instrument

ACFI - Aged Care Funding Instrument
Description and Current Rates and Values

The Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) determines the level of financial assistance for personal care and lifestyle costs when a resident enters Commonwealth subsidised residential care.

The ACFI divides care into three categories and each category has three funded levels.

The subsidy paid to residential care provider is the lesser of the sum of the amounts payable in each domain (activities of daily living, behaviour supplement and complex health care supplement) and the maximum ACFI rate (currently $ 181.21 per day).

For example, the cost of care for a resident assessed as requiring a high level of care for activities of daily living, a low level of care in relation to the behavioural supplement, and medium level of care under the complex health care supplement would be $139.87 per day or $50 099.90 per year.

Daily ACFI Rates and Values - 2011 to 2012
Level of Care	Activities of Daily Living	Behavioural Supplement	Compex Health Care Supplement
Nil	$ 0.00	$ 0.00	$ 0.00
Low	$ 30.90	$ 7.06	$ 13.90
Medium	$ 67.28	$ 14.63	$ 39.60
High	$ 93.21	$ 30.82	$ 57.18
Amount RCS rate must be exceeded by to move to ACFI - $15.00 Adjusted Subsidy - $11.17 Extra Service - 25% Late ACFI - $25.00 Extended Hospital Leave - 50%
Source: DoHA (2010)

Aged Care Funding Instrument Rates 2012 - Medicare Chart

The Australian Government spends more than $7.1 billion annually to support the care for older Australians living in aged care homes.

The rate of government subsidy that homes receive is based on the aged care providers appraisal of each resident's care needs.

The Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) replaced the Resident Classification Scale (RCS) as the mechanism to allocate this Government subsidy from 20 March 2008.

The ACFI was implemented to:

better match funding to the complex care needs of residents;
reduce the documentation created by aged care providers to justify funding;
achieve higher levels of agreement between aged care staff and departmental review officers in review audits (known as validation).

The ACFI is based primarily on the residents dependency (need for care) rather than on care planning or care provided by an aged care home.

Unlike the RCS, ACFI does not use ongoing care documentation as evidence to support funding claims.

The ACFI consists of twelve care need questions.

Diagnostic information about mental and behavioural disorders and other medical conditions is also collected.

This information is used to categorise residents as having low, medium or high care needs in each of the following three care domains:

Activities of daily living
Behaviour
Complex Health Care.

The Department of Health and Ageing is closely monitoring the ACFI to ensure it is achieving its objectives.

The Australian Government conducted an extensive review of the impact of the ACFI 34 months after its commencement.

Results of the ACFI review were released in May 2011.

ACFI - Aged Care Funding Instrument Description and Current Rates and Values

ACFI - Aged Care Funding Instrument
Description and Current Rates and Values