My Aged Care e-Referral

In preparation for the introduction of the Single Assessment System workforce later this year, there will be minor changes to the naming conventions in the GP e-Referral SmartForm, effective from 14 October 2024:

• The terms "Regional Assessment Services (RAS)" and "Aged Care Assessment Teams (ACAT)" will be replaced with "Home Support Assessment" and "Comprehensive Assessment."

These changes are designed to align with the new assessment process and provide additional time for users to adapt to the new terminology. These changes will not impact Health Professionals’ ability to make a referral to My Aged Care. For more information visit the Single Assessment System for Aged Care page on the Department of Health and Aged Care’s website.

My Aged Care is the starting point for older people to access Australian Government funded aged care services. GPs support patients to access services by referring them for an aged care needs assessment via My Aged Care. Depending on their needs, your patient may be referred to an assessment organisation to have either a:

• Home Support Assessment  to determine their eligibility to receive entry level Commonwealth Home Support (CHSP) services, which allow an older person to remain living at home. These assessments are usually conducted face-to-face in the patient’s place of residence by an assessor; or a
• Comprehensive Assessment  to determine their eligibility for a Home Care Package, or for residential, respite, short-term restorative and transition care. Patients may also be referred to CHSP services where appropriate. Comprehensive assessments are undertaken by an assessor in a face-to-face context, preferably a patient’s usual place of residence.

The My Aged Care e-Referral SmartForm is a quick and simple way to submit referrals to My Aged Care for your patients. The SmartForm is currently integrated with the following practice management systems: Best Practice, Communicare, Genie, MedicalDirector Clinical and Helix, Medtech Evolution, Shexie Platinum and Zedmed. The e-Referral form is intuitive, easy to use and will be accessible through the patient’s electronic medical record (EMR). It requires very little manual data entry because it extracts information from the EMR, with the user validating patient details, and adding additional information and attachments as required. Once submitted, the e-Referral is safely and securely sent electronically directly from your practice management system to an assessment organisation to review your patient’s aged care needs.

e-Referrals were introduced in response to GP feedback that the existing referral processes were too time consuming. e-Referrals are integrated with existing PMSs and pre-populate available patient data. To send an e-Referral, you just need to check patient details, enter information about their aged care needs and add any necessary attachments to support an assessment. This makes e-Referrals the quickest and easiest way to refer patients to My Aged Care.

The My Aged Care ‘Make a Referral’ form requires you to visit the My Aged Care website and manually enter all the required information. e-Referrals are integrated into your PMS and pre-populate patient information so you don’t need to visit the My Aged Care website, saving you time. The e-Referral form is based on the current My Aged Care website referral form so is familiar to people who have used it before.

Yes, step-by-step video tutorials and user guides are available for Best Practice, MedicalDirector Clinical and Genie PMSs. PDF user guides are available for Communicare, Medtech Evolution, Shexie and Zedmed. You can find them on this web-page or click the following links:

• Best Practice (Lava SP3 or above)
• Communicare (v22.4 or above)
• Genie (v8.8 or above)
• MedicalDirector (3.16 or above)
• Medtech Evolution (10.4.4 or above)
• Shexie Platinum (7.0 or above)
• Zedmed (v35 or above)

e-Referrals are available on Best Practice Lava SP3 and above, Communicare v22.4 and above, Genie v8.8 and above, MedicalDirector Clinical 3.16 and above and Helix, Medtech Evolution 10.4.4 and above, Shexie Platinum and Zedmed, which make up more than 90% of the general practice PMS market in Australia.
Some older versions of these PMSs may not be compatible with the e-Referral form or may require some additional manual configuration. Please contact the HealthLink help desk on 1800 125 036 (Option 4) or email helpdesk@healthlink.net for advice about how to access or enable the e-Referral form.
Referrals can be made via the My Aged Care website if you are unable to access e-Referrals or you can use the web-based MyHealthLink Portal. The MyHealthLink Portal is an online portal designed to enable smaller medical practices and individual healthcare providers to utilise HealthLink SmartForms.

Here are quick guides that show you how to check what version you have in the following PMSs.

• Best Practice
• MedicalDirector
• Genie
• Medtech Evolution: Please call Medtech support on 1800 148 165
• Zedmed (please contact your software vendor)
• Shexie Platinum (please contact your software vendor)
• Communicare (please contact your software vendor)

e-Referrals are available on Best Practice Lava SP3 and above, Communicare v22.4 and above, Genie v8.8 and above, MedicalDirector Clinical 3.16 and above, MedicalDirector Helix, Medtech Evolution 10.4.4 and above, Shexie Platinum 7.0 and above and Zedmed v35 and above which make up more than 90% of the general practice PMS market in Australia.

The e-Referral process is designed for people who aren’t receiving government-funded aged care services and are not registered with My Aged Care. The e-Referral form will check if your patient meets the minimum needs and age requirements before sending the referral to My Aged Care. This includes:

• How much assistance your patient needs with everyday tasks; and
• That your patient is aged 65 years or older (50 years or older for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people).

Patients who are aged 50 years or older who are on a low income, homeless or at risk of being homeless are encouraged to call My Aged Care to discuss their situation. If your patient is already registered with My Aged Care, they can contact My Aged Care on 1800 200 422 to request a new assessment or they can talk to their service provider if they wish to have a support plan review. If you’re not sure if your patient is currently receiving aged care services, you can phone My Aged Care to find out more information before you decide to make a referral. You’ll need your patient’s consent, or that of their legal representative, to obtain this information.

If your submission has been successful, you’ll get a green message at the top of the form confirming it has been sent. If your submission is unsuccessful, it will display an error message. In this case, please call the HealthLink help desk on 1800 125 036 or email helpdesk@healthlink.net. To check if there are any outstanding referrals, you can access ‘Parked’ forms and resume them. Each PMS handles Parked forms differently so check out our user guides to see how you can access them.

My Aged Care e-Referrals use end-to-end encryption to ensure privacy and security. Personal information and documents are retained securely within the My Aged Care system. By default, the form will load the minimum information required by My Aged Care to create a record so that an assessment can be organised.

Anybody who currently has access to your PMS will be able to access My Aged Care e-Referrals. Depending on how your PMS is configured, it may be possible for practice nurses to submit an e-Referral. For more information on this, please contact HealthLink on 1800 125 036 or email helpdesk@healthlink.net.

All PMSs store e-Referrals in some type of inbox so you can refer back to what you have sent. However, in each PMS the name of the inbox and how you find it, is slightly different. For example, in MedicalDirector Clinical, the inbox is called “letters” and when you select the “letters” tab you will see your past e-Referrals and messages.

If for some reason your e-Referral fails, an error message will appear. In the first instance, we recommend you call the HealthLink help desk on 1800 125 036 or email helpdesk@healthlink.net. If it does fail, the information you already entered should be saved so you won’t have to complete the form again.

There are specific circumstances where health professionals may need to refer directly to a service provider. These circumstances are where there is an urgent need for a service based on the patient’s circumstances which, if not met immediately, may place the patient at risk. The services where this is likely to happen are:

• nursing
• personal care
• meals
• transport

These services would be of a time-limited duration (two weeks) with a longer-term commitment only occurring after assessment. The preferred method for health professionals to access urgent services is by contacting the service provider directly. The service provider will, if able, provide urgent care for the patient and subsequently refer the patient to My Aged Care for an assessment of ongoing service needs. Acceptance of the referral for urgent care will be based on the provider’s capacity to take on new clients and the relative needs of clients awaiting services. If you do not have contact details of a provider, you can call My Aged Care on 1800 200 422 or use the Find a provider tool to search for a provider.

Once you complete the initial needs identification questions, the e-Referral form will recommend a home support or a comprehensive assessment. You will be able to accept the recommendation or choose the alternative assessment before you submit the e-Referral. View the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) for the Single Assessment System. The IAT is the new tool for assessing the eligibility of older people for government-subsidised aged care.

Your patient should hear from an assessment organisation within two to six weeks. They will tell your patient if they are eligible for an assessment and arrange for an assessor to visit them. If they haven’t heard anything in this time, your patient can contact My Aged Care on 1800 200 422. We advise providing your patient with the brochure After you’ve registered with My Aged Care  for information on what they can expect after they have been referred and how they can track their progress. You can order brochures from National Mailing & Marketing by emailing health@nationalmailing.com.au or phoning (02) 6269 1025.

The My Aged Care fax number (1800 728 174) is no longer available, as of 31 July 2023.

Why did My Aged Care stop receiving fax?   Decommissioning fax will provide the following benefits:

• make it faster and easier for clients to progress through their aged care journey;
• provide certainty for referrers that a referral has been received by My Aged Care; and
• allows information to be pre-populated where possible through the use of digital forms.

Once a completed referral is received by the My Aged Care System, the referral will be assigned to an assessment organisation, who will then call your patient to discuss and organise an assessment.

• Make sure your patient is aware that they may be contacted by My Aged Care or an assessor.
• Your patient should hear from My Aged Care or an assessment organisation within two to six weeks.
• If the referral is incomplete, My Aged Care will contact you to confirm the information provided.
• Print or provide a copy of the confirmation screen and give it to your patient
• After an e-Referral is submitted to the Department of Health and Aged Care, the client and their representatives can track its progress through myGov. They will also receive a My Aged Care welcome pack in the mail containing helpful information and outlining what their next steps will be. This information is not sent back to their referring Doctor/ General Practitioner.

You can give your patient a copy of the ‘After you’ve registered with My Aged Care’ brochure. This brochure gives your patient information on what to expect after they have been referred to My Aged Care and how they can track their progress.