People in rural and remote Australia deserve the same aged care services

CHA has been in discussions with Government and the Department on changes to the Modified Monash Model (MMM).

The MMM classification system is used to distribute funding according to rurality in 58 Department of Health and Aged Care programs including aged care. Under the MMM classification system locations are classified into one of seven categories ranging from metropolitan to regional, rural and very remote with the value of Medicare payments and aged care support increasing the more remote an area becomes.

The MMM does not accurately reflect the high cost of service provision in mining towns. These towns face significant isolation challenges, located six or more hours by road from metropolitan centres, making essential health services scarce and more costly.

The NDIS has mechanisms to accommodate these outliers, and aged care needs these too. Aged care urgently requires these same adjustments already adopted by the NDIS to ensure older people in regional, rural and remote communities have the same choice, access, and quality of care as everyone else.

In its pre-budget submission and in discussions with Government, CHA is calling for immediate action to provide exemptions for towns like Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill where remoteness disproportionately increases operational costs.

The Department is planning a review of the MMM to address these structural issues. CHA is working collaboratively with the Government and the Department to support this while exploring options to address short term funding gaps.

Laura Haylen is Director of Aged Care Policy at Catholic Health Australia