Discussion with a former ACAT assessor

Your Aged Care Compass

When an Aged Care Assessment Team (ACAT) assessor does an assessment of the older person, they look at the person holistically. They want to understand what services and support could help that person to continue to live in their own home.

We discuss what the assessor is looking for, why they ask certain questions and why they may look around the older person’s home as part of the assessment.

Janine gives us some great insight into the information that an ACAT assessor gathers and how this information is collected. This enables the ACAT to approve for the appropriate level of care for the older person.

In this episode:

• What is an ACAT assessor?
• What programs do ACATs approve for?
• What information ACATs are looking for
• Why certain questions are asked
• Looking at the person’s surroundings as well as talking to them
• Situations that indicate urgent help might be needed
• Information from the ACAT assessment
• Things to consider before you have an assessment

Resources Mentioned

• My Book | SeeMeACN
• What Is An ACAT (Aged Care) Assessment? | SeeMeACN
• Access Australian aged care information and services | My Aged Care
• Let's Talk Consultation

Related Episodes

• Episode 3: Have I been assessed by My Aged Care?
• Episode 4: How do I get help at home?

Connect with Coral Wilkinson:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Guiding you through My Aged Care | SeeMeACN website

More about Your Aged Care Compass podcast:

Are you supporting an older loved one at home and ready to give up because it’s just too hard? Your Aged Care Compass is aimed at anyone who is caring for an older loved one who still lives at home and is wondering what support is available to them.

We're Coral and Michelle, the sisters behind our business, See Me Aged Care Navigators.

Coral is a registered nurse with over 30 years’ experience in both health and aged care. A former assessor with the aged care assessment team, an advocate and author, there’s not much Coral doesn’t know about Australia’s aged care system.

Michelle is a former pharmacist with over 30 years in the public health and private sectors of pharmacy. Michelle is now client care manager for our business.

Our story started as one of supporting our parents to remain in their own home, to be as independent as possible and remain connected to their community. We reached a point however, of needing extra support and we achieved this because we know Australia’s aged care system so well, we knew what programs could assist us and our parents.

This podcast, Your Aged Care Compass, brings together not only our personal experience in supporting our own ageing parents but also our vast professional experience in supporting other families to keep their loved ones at home.

We will help you makes sense of Australia’s aged care system, from your first contact with My Aged Care through to the different funding streams and assessment workforces, management options for home care packages and extra funding that people might be eligible for.

There's so much more. Topics relating to dementia and legal and financial considerations will be covered, as well as real life stories of where it went wrong for people and how we guided them to get it right.

Your Aged Care Compass will guide you clearly and compassionately to the right support at the right time for your ageing parents and loved ones.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a Rating and Review. We’d love you to share this podcast with any friends or family who have older loved ones.

More about Janine:

Janine discovered her love for community nursing in the metropolitan Sydney area of Canterbury in Sydney. Developing her skills Janine commenced in the role of Aged Care Assessor in an Aged Care Assessment Team (ACAT). She has worked as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, Psychogeriatric Aged Care Nurse and Team Leader in ACAT and Rehabilitation teams in metropolitan Sydney including Auburn and Kogarah, and interstate teams in Canberra and Queensland. It is within these teams Janine discovered she had found her passion, helping older people to remain living at home, whilst assisting them to maintain as much choice and independence as possible.

Following a move to the ACT in 2006, and after a period of working within the ACAT team, Janine was a Clinical Nurse Consultant for the Department of Veteran Affairs, providing consultation to other nursing services regarding the nursing care of veterans and DVA entitled persons who were over 65 and considered to have high level, complex needs.

In 2016 Janine was the Subject Matter Expert, national assessor and content creator for the My Aged Care national assessment workforce training.

Following another move in 2019 to the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland, (which Janine feels will definitely be her last) Janine was providing aged care assessment as an ANACC (Australian National Aged Care Classification) Assessor. This assessment was introduced to improve the funding for people living in residential care.

Janine thoroughly enjoys her role with Coral and Michelle at See Me Aged Care Navigators. She is able to use all of her experience and skills to empower and assist others to understand and negotiate the national aged care system.