Enhancing the Lived Experience – Additional Services in Residential Aged Care

Additional Services are a great opportunity for Providers to offer their consumers an even greater level of service, choice and flexibility, ensuring consumers continue to enjoy all those things they’re accustomed to.

Additional services differ from residence to residence. These are services that are offered in addition to the Specified Care and Services Schedule and can include things like Foxtel, hairdressing services and even delivery of newspapers.

Providers are now employing different strategies to cater to consumer preferences. Some providers embrace a customisable approach, empowering consumers to handpick the additional services that best match their preferences. Other Providers are offering bundled packages comprising a set of supplementary services.

Providers have the freedom to determine the specific services they offer, establish associated costs, and decide whether certain services will be mandatory for consumers who choose to live in their residence. By embracing a consumer-centric approach, providers are able to foster an environment where consumers can enjoy a diverse array of services that align with their preferences and enhance their overall living experience.

There are a number of requirements that Providers must adhere to before consumers can begin to receive benefits from Additional Services. There is a consent process that needs to be undertaken and providers can only charge for additional services when consumers are receiving a benefit from these services. There are also a number of tools and processes that should be considered when implementing additional services in your residence, to ensure Providers additional service offerings are consistent and consumers are continually receiving benefit from these services.

To support providers with implementing Additional Services, Anchor Excellence has developed an Additional Services Audit. 

During an Additional Services Audit, our expert Anchor Leaders will meet with your team to understand some key elements:

• Your consumers’ personal preferences
• The local competition and your value proposition
• Your operational capabilities and not over-promising 
• Your financial model and expectations 
• The importance of the transformation required
• The compliance environment and recognising consumer deterioration
• The need to be agile and adapt to consumers’ needs
• The implications to existing consumers when implementing in a live home vs new home

The Additional Services program is then tailored to meet your specific needs and will often include a day on-site, some desktop reviews to ensure compliance to the Aged Care Act, financial modeling, procurement support (if required), provision of templated frameworks, provision of templated policies and processes, brochure content creation, staff handbook content creation and staff education. 

Why should you implement Additional Services?

• Consumer satisfaction
• Compliance 
• Transformation success
• Potential revenue increase and diversification
• Program sustainability and viability

At Anchor Excellence, our Leaders have been involved with implementing and executing additional services programs and transitioning from Extra Services to Additional Services for over ten years. The complexity and compliance requirements should not be underestimated.