Ins & Outs of Aged Care…What’s the latest

It’s hard to be passionate about Aged Care and in fact a lot of the time it’s very overwhelming and daunting and can be a very emotional time for the family when they have to move a loved one into care.

Often one of the biggest questions is how do we fund it!? Especially when it comes to paying the Refundable Accommodation Deposit (RAD), with most people then stressing over what to do with the family home? Add onto that the fact it can be something that could be time-critical, and selling a home isn’t something that can be done overnight.

The good thing is that this isn’t the only option you have. Although most Aged Care providers will probably try to make you pay a RAD, you actually don’t have to straight away. In actual fact, you have 30 days from the date you enter Aged Care to make a decision on whether or not you have to pay a full or partial RAD, or if you want, you could even pay a Daily Accommodation Payment (DAP) or a combination of both.

If you elect to pay a DAP, at a later time you can then decide to pay a RAD.  If selling the family home is the only viable financial option, by selecting a DAP you have the flexibility to not rush to sell the home and can instead pay the DAP up until the home is sold and when you can afford to pay the RAD.

However, the DAP isn’t necessarily cheap either, it’s normally worked out based on what RAD you are required to pay to secure a room. For instance, if the RAD is $450,000 and the current Maximum Permissible Interest Rate (MPIR) is 4.04%, then your DAP is $49.81 per day ($450,000 x 4.04%) / 365. If you pay a part RAD then you’re also required to pay a part DAP, and an option you have is to have the DAP deducted from the RAD to help ease cash flow.

Now you can see why it’s hard to be passionate about Aged Care, you have RAD’s, DAP’s, MPIR’s, and a whole lot of other acronyms that are hard to get excited about, and we haven’t even gone into all the other fees yet, yikes!

Here at JBS, we are passionate about helping our clients through every stage of their life including assisting their loved ones make decisions around Aged Care. When the time comes, rather than stressing about what to do, pick up the phone and talk to JBS. We can help assess what the best option is for you or your loved one and help you put in place a strategy to help fund Aged Care, and where possible help to reduce the impact of the fees.