Thank you for your ongoing feedback and patience as we work through the first full rollout of Support at Home (SAH). Some parts of the initial specifications provided by Services Australia have behaved differently in real-world use, especially during the first quarterly transition, which has forced us to redesign parts of how Lookout interprets and presents this data.
We are actively working through this complexity in order to make a highly complex scheme as simple to operate as possible.
We now want to give you a clear view of what we have already delivered and what is planned next. We will continue publishing weekly updates to our Support at Home changelog.
Already Addressed
Locked periods now behave correctly in statements (Released Wed, 18 Feb)
- What was happening: Some invoice transactions were allowed in previously locked periods, which could affect statements and reports.
- Resolution: Locked statement periods are now respected as intended.
Care management invoice dates now reflect service delivery dates (Released Tue, 17 Feb)
- What was happening: Care management was showing based on invoice published date instead of service delivery date, causing drawdowns to appear in the wrong period in some scenarios.
- Resolution: Care management invoices now use the service delivery date rather than the invoice published date. This ensures that drawdowns appear in the correct period.
Client contributions now pull through to generated budget service plans (Fixed: Tue, 3 Feb)
- What was happening: Some client contribution percentages weren’t appearing in generated budget service plans, especially at the start of a new quarter. This caused confusion when generating budgets.
- Resolution: The correct client contribution now appears in budget service plans.
- What to do: If you notice any missing contributions, re-generate the budget and check the percentages are now appearing correctly.
Work in progress
Balances at the quarter rollover for unspent funds (Released by Friday 27th Feb)
Partially used and exhausted funding sources were appearing as if they had reset in real-time tracking for the new quarter. We now show remaining funding sources with the correct available balance to reflect accurate prior expenditure, while exhausted funding sources will no longer show.
Improved granularity of SAH funding sources in real-time tracking (Released by Friday 27th Feb)
We no longer combine various funding sources of different lengths into a single combined summary period. The approach resulted in apportioned funding amounts and unintuitive results that did not reflect the totals in the funding sources.
Before:
After:
Care management tracking & data export (Releasing soon)
- A new dashboard insight and a new data exporter template have been built to allow reporting on SAH care management activity.
- This feature is currently going through QA.
Known feedback
We are currently estimating the feasibility and time required to address these top requested feedback items.
Overspend/underspend alerts
- What’s happening: Dashboard counts for overspend/underspend alerts sometimes don’t match the underlying member list because alerts are appearing for the count of funding sources with alerts (including funding sources with alerts from prior quarters), not the amount of unique members impacted.
- Impact: This can make dashboard insights feel confusing.
Service plans generated from rosters
- What’s happening: Generating from roster was designed as a shortcut for providing a budget during the initial SAH cutover.
- Impact: Currently, when a service plan is generated from a roster, it doesn’t always perfectly match the roster’s schedule, rates, or exceptions.
Restrict SAH service selection based on member eligibility
- What’s happening: Service restrictions cannot be systemically enforced for SAH.
- Impact: Providers may schedule any services, which could affect client contributions or provider finances if they haven’t checked if they’re eligible. This can lead to claim rejections or unexpected charges.
Real-time tracking in the care app
- What’s happening: Lookout currently does not support real time tracking within the care app.
- Impact: Members cannot see their own available balances.
Real-time tracking in the API
- What’s happening: Lookout currently does not support real time tracking via the API
- Impact: API users cannot see available balances.
Continued removal of HCP elements
- What’s happening: Some areas in Lookout may still display legacy Home Care Package (HCP) funding information
- What to do at the moment: Please ignore these fields and refer to the Member’s Support at Home funding source setup as the source of truth. Once a Member’s Care Recipient ID is entered, their funding data will automatically sync, including their current classification level, entitlements, and any interim funding status. There is no need to manage or modify these values manually, as Services Australia data is used as the source of truth.