The My Aged Care Find a Provider helps older Australians find an aged care service provider who can meet there needs. The tool allows people to search for a provider based on a range of criteria, including whether the provider specialises in caring for people from the 9 different Special Needs Groups defined in aged care legislation (such as people from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds).

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety heard that the specialisation claims in the Find a Provider tool were not always reliable, and recommended the Australian Government develop an independent process for verifying provider specialisations.

Pre-empting this recommendation, the department engaged AHA to develop a draft Specialisation Verification Framework to ensure the accuracy of specialisation claims. The draft framework set out specialisation criteria (and supporting evidence) for each Special Needs Group.

The department then re-engaged AHA to finalise and operationalise the framework. This work involved:

• consulting with key stakeholders (including the department, peak bodies representing aged care providers, and representatives of people from each Special Needs Group) to finalise the framework
• developing documentation and systems to assess and verify aged care providers’ claims to specialisation, in line with the evidence criteria in the framework
• recruiting and training an appropriately experienced assessor workforce
• assessing provider applications against the framework.

Over the 2-year engagement, AHA assessed applications from more than 900 providers, and approved more than 1,000 specialisations. The team also answered more than 350 phone calls from providers asking about the application and assessment process.

Once all historical specialisation claims had been assessed, AHA provided robust procedures, documentation and insights to support the department in transitioning the verification process in house.

The verification process provides older Australians and their families with confidence that aged care providers claiming to specialise in caring for people from Special Needs Groups are equipped to meet the unique care needs of these groups.