Health officials in instability over 11th-hour backflip on aged care algorithm override powers, emails reveal

Ministers given emergency briefing about changes to algorithm decisions just three days before tool rollout.

Senior health department officials were in instability before the rollout of an algorithm to determine funding packages for older Australians, after discovering legislation had been drafted so rigidly that the tool could not legally be overridden by aged care assessors.

Emails published under freedom of information by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing show that, despite assessors long receiving reassurance from the department that they would have powers to change incorrect algorithm decisions, officials realised at the 11th hour this would violate proposed regulations.

In an email, they were warned by senior department staff that removing the human override function from the aged care assessment tool for support at home packages carried risk.

In the email sent on 29 October, three days before the 1 November algorithm rollout, the ministers were told: “There is a risk that this late change in messaging to assessment organisations may not filter through to assessor behaviour.”

The IAT involves an assessor asking an older person questions about their physical, social and personal circumstances before the algorithm uses this data to determine how much government-funded home support and funding they are eligible to receive.

On 24 October an assistant secretary at the department, Rachel Blackwood, wrote to deputy secretary of aged care Greg Pugh about the legal issues that had come to light around allowing assessors to override the algorithm.

The shadow aged care minister, Anne Ruston, said the Coalition had introduced legislation to restore human decision-making to the assessment process and accused Labor from blocking it.