00:02When an elderly person wants some subsidised care at home, an assessor would come to their
00:08home, a clinical assessor. And in the past, what that person would have done is take questions,
00:13they would look around the home, they would make an assessment, they would fill out a
00:17questionnaire and they would decide on the level of care and funding that that person
00:20would receive. Now, that information is still collected by the clinical assessors, but it's
00:26put into a tool and that tool drives, and that data from that tool goes into an algorithm.
00:32It's the algorithm that now decides what level of care and support and therefore funding
00:38that elderly person receives. So why did the government introduce this measure? Why not
00:43leave it to those clinical assessors, as was the case before? So one of the reasons the
00:49government says they introduced it is because they want more fair and consistent support going
00:56to elderly Australians. They say that there was a certain amount of subjectivity coming
01:01through from the clinical assessors. So they said that there was about $4 billion being unspent.
01:09So some people had been over allocated funding. They wanted to make it fairer. However, what
01:16people are saying that they're seeing on the ground now is that in reality, people who are
01:22going for a reassessment, having been told by their provider they should apply because
01:26they now need more care, they need more hours, they're being knocked back. And in some cases,
01:32they're being told that they should be on a lower level of care than they're already on.
01:36So the government says they're trying to make it fair and everybody gets the same level of
01:42care depending on what their weaknesses are. Others say that's not the case and it's actually
01:48being reduced. Tell us a bit more about what clinical assessors are saying that they're
01:52seeing on the ground. Well, we've got some examples. For example, we did a 7.30 that goes
01:59to Ayrtonheim where we interviewed a woman with vascular dementia. Now she's already on a level
02:05three package and she wanted to go up to a level four. She had a reassessment and she said
02:11it was very different to the first assessment she had. The assessor came in, it was tick a box
02:17sort of situation. When she got the results back, she was told that she actually didn't have an
02:24impairment under the Aged Care Act, which surprised her daughter who said she's actually been
02:32diagnosed with vascular dementia. We have other examples of people with motor neuron disease who
02:40have applied to get the top level of package. These are very progressive illnesses. One man in
02:47particular that needs oxygen to breathe. He was knocked back for the highest level of home care
02:53support. So the concern is that what assessors and advocates are saying is that they feel that this
03:02tool is being used to actually reduce funding to the system in order to save the government money.
03:09The government rejects that allegation. And you say people are comparing it to robo-dead. Tell us about that.
03:15So the reason they're saying that is because of this inability to override the actual algorithm.
03:21In fact, what's interesting about this is our investigation uncovered the fact that in May last year,
03:28assessors were given direction that they would have the power to actually override the algorithm.
03:33And the training they received said that as well. But on November 1, which was the day that the reforms
03:39came into place, new information was published, a new manual saying they wouldn't. And they're saying
03:45that is like robo-dead in that people who were asked to pay back Centrelink payments had no human
03:53being involved that they could deal with in order for them to check the actual calculations. And so
04:00therefore, that's the comparison they're making. And the ABC launched a crowdsourced investigation
04:06in 2017. That led to a four-corner series, the Royal Commission. You're launching another call out.
04:12Tell us about that. So the reforms just came in in November, November 1. There have been massive
04:19reforms across the sector. We're asking to talk to people because obviously there's a waiting list
04:24of 100,000 people waiting just to get assessed. There's close to 100,000 people also waiting for
04:31their package. We know some people are only getting 60% of their package. We know that there's complaints
04:37about the algorithm. We know that people are concerned about the co-payments they have to pay now.
04:42And also that there's a lack of residential care beds. So we're looking at the government's policy
04:47and the reforms that they've introduced. And we're wanting to hear from those people who are
04:52experiencing it, but also those people who are working in the sector, who can tell us what
04:56they're seeing from their point of view as well.
