Name: Computer algorithm deciding how much care elderly Australians receive | 7.30
Uploaded: 2026-03-25T23:02:14.000Z
Duration: 8 min 47 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

When Catherine and Natalie Taylor sit down together, it looks like any mother-daughter catch-up.

But Catherine has vascular dementia, and the disease is advancing.

Mum does need supervision pretty much constantly, just to make sure that she's safe and secure.

Catherine already receives aged care support funded by the federal government.

Last year, her daughter applied to get a higher level of care.

We have personal care assistants who come in three days a week to help with showering and personal care.

I would love it if Mum had extra funding available so that she could shower every day.

When Catherine was reassessed in November, it was under a new system using an algorithm.

An assessor did the interview and put her information into an assessment tool, but

it was an algorithm that made the final decision.

it felt like it was just a tick-and-flick, tick-a-box kind of assessment to be done.

That week, Natalie got word the application for more funding was rejected.

My Aged Care said the assessment had found there was "a lack of evidence that Catherine has an impairment" under the new Aged Care Act.

It just astounds me that somebody that has a diagnosis can then be found to have no impairment.

I'm completely perplexed by what came back.

To this day, I still don't know what it means.

Yeah, well, it's about 10,000 a year, isn't it, level one?

Adrian Morgan and his staff provide care and services for Catherine and thousands of others.

But the biggest worry would be if they go for a reassessment.

They've seen a big increase in rejections since the algorithm was introduced.

Well over a third have now been rejected.

And these are people who previously would have been approved.

We only put people forward for reassessment and upgrade when we think there's a strong case.

Under the new scheme, the clinicians who do the assessments can't override the algorithm's outcomes, even when they think they're wrong.

I'm worried about the capacity of an algorithm, in principle, to be able to take account of all the nuances there are with a person's circumstances, their medical conditions, their family support.

My concern is really because there can be no human oversight of the outcome that's produced by a computer algorithm.

That inability to change the outcome has led to comparisons with robo debt.

Minister, are these once-in-a-generation reforms just robo aged care?

I respectfully disagree with the premise that she has put forward in her question.

The government created the new system as part of its widespread reforms, saying it would be a fairer and more consistent process for determining aged care funding.

Under the previous system, we had $4 billion of value allocated to people incorrectly and therefore unable to be deployed to look after older people.

Many clinical assessors have contacted the ABC about the algorithm but fear for their jobs if they speak out.

Assessor Mark Aitken only feels safe to go public because he quit last year.

We were promised something better, and what I see now is that we have something that is worse.

Mark Aitken says he and his colleagues could never be sure what the algorithm would decide.

somebody might get a level two supported home eligibility outcome from the algorithm when we had felt that they really needed to get a six.

Clinical assessors were told they couldn't override the algorithm's outcome, even though there was a specific button labelled "Override" on the screen.

What is the point of having an override button in an integrated assessment tool if you can't use it?

In fact, originally, assessors were going to be given the power to override the algorithm.

A Department of Health guide published in May last year states that assessors will have the option to accept or override the tool's outcome.

But on the day the algorithm came into effect, the Department of Health published a new manual telling assessors they were forbidden from overriding it.

Well, the assessor's job is to input the clinical considerations to do that comprehensive assessment.

They cannot override the rules they apply equitably to everyone across the spectrum.

In the first four and a half months, there have been 800 requests for reviews, compared with 178 in the last financial year.

Now, one of the people who gave feedback on the assessment tool, which feeds data into the algorithm, is speaking out about his fears regarding the lack of human oversight.

It's the same thing as what was happening with robo debt.

They're doing exactly the same thing, only this time it's with people's needs and health.

So what's the waitlist for an assessment analyst, do you think?

Peter Wilcox is an aged care advocate who regularly liaises with others to discuss the many reforms to the sector.

He was invited to be on a Department of Health advisory group for the aged care assessment tool in 2022.

After six months analysing the tool and giving feedback, he believes the tool and the algorithm are designed to save the government budget.

The ranking on the questions and the way the algorithm looked at it was definitely designed to reduce services.

He says concerns about the assessment tool were brushed aside and that the department expected them to simply rubber-stamp it.

We were given, I believe, an almost completely finished product, and

it's like saying, "How are we going to spin this so it looks good?" Well, I don't agree with that characterisation.

As I said, there were 20,000 assessments that were used to build the integrated assessment tool.

There's human beings involved at every step of the process.

The system of assessment has to be equitable.

It has to be efficient, and it has to be accurate.

Are you concerned that you might be the minister that is in charge of a scandal similar to the robo debt scandal?

I am very proud to be implementing the Albanese government's very ambitious programme of reform to make sure that every older person across our country can access safe, reliable, and

high-quality aged care services and to age with dignity.

Catherine Taylor remains without any extra care.

Her daughter isn't sure she can do the job for much longer.

The cost of care and having people come in puts a lot of strain on our family financially.

Residential aged care is something that is being considered, absolutely.

The irony of this is that the aim of support at home is so that people can live well at home, and

by introducing something like this, they'll end up with the exact opposite.

People will be pushed unnecessarily towards residential care or hospital.