Client—amount of assistance (HACC), total assistance N[NN]

Identifying and definitional attributes

• Community Services (retired), Recorded 16/11/2009

Client - amount of assistance (HACC), total assistance N[NN] is one of three data elements which allow agencies to calculate and report total amounts of assistance received by a client during a HACC MDS reporting period. Agencies are required to report a separate total for each of the types of assistance provided by the HACC program. As no single unit of measurement is appropriate to all types of assistance, agencies will be required to report total amounts using a unit of measurement appropriate to the type of assistance.

This data element indicates the total amount of HACC-funded assistance received by a client during a reporting period for each of the types of assistance that are measured by quantity. It also provides information about Service delivery setting for assistance provided with meals.

Information about the total amount of assistance provided to clients by HACC-funded agencies facilitates interstate and cross regional comparisons of HACC service provision and comparisons between different client sub-populations. To a limited extent, this data element also provides information about the outcome associated with using HACC funding to help meet the needs of a client. Future developments in the HACC MDS may include additional information about HACC program outcomes.

Value domain attributes

Representational attributes

Data element attributes

Collection and usage attributes

Is derived from the data elements:

• Service event - assistance received date, DDMMYYYY
• Service event - assistance type, HACC code N[N]
• Service event - amount of assistance, Number N[NN]
• Service event - service delivery setting, HACC code [N] 
• Service event - funding source, HACC code N

The agency should calculate a total for each of the types of assistance that have been measured in hours and minutes throughout the reporting period. Each of the data elements listed above will be necessary in calculating the total amounts of assistance received.

The data element Service event - service delivery setting, HACC code [N] is only required in relation to Meals assistance.

Service event - assistance received date, DDMMYYYY:

allows agencies to select service delivery events that were provided within the HACC MDS reporting period.

Service event - assistance type, HACC code N[N]:

allows agencies to identify service delivery events that relate to the same type of assistance.

Service event - amount of assistance, Number N[NN]:

indicates the amount of assistance that was received by the person on each occasion of service delivery.

Service event - service delivery setting, HACC code [N]:

allows agencies to separately identify meals provided to a person at home and those provided at a centre or other setting.

Service event - funding source, HACC code N:

allows the agency to include only those service delivery events which were funded either wholly or partially through the HACC program (i.e. HACC service events).

The types of assistance measured by quantity are Meals, Formal Linen Services and Transport. The agency should record the total amount of Meals assistance received by the person during the reporting period as the total number of meals received, regardless of the number of deliveries involved in providing those meals. The agency should record the total amount of assistance with Formal Linen Services received by the person during the reporting period as the total number of deliveries/collections. The agency should record the total amount of assistance with Transport received by the person during the reporting period as the total number of one-way trips.

Each total will have a field length of between 1 and 3 digits. Where the agency has provided no assistance of a given type to the client within the reporting period, the amount of assistance should be reported as zero.

This data element is derived for reporting purposes only. The information required to calculate Total amount by type of assistance received (quantity) should have been recorded by the agency on an ongoing basis during the reporting period using the cluster of data elements specified in the Data Domain (see above).

Reporting requirements: 

This data element is required for reporting in the HACC MDS collection. The agency is required to report a total amount of assistance received for each of the types of assistance measured by quantity (listed below). For meals assistance, agencies are required to report a total amount received by service setting (see Service event - amount of assistance and Service event - service delivery setting).

• Meals received at home
• Meals received at centre/other
• Formal linen services
• Transport.

The agency should calculate a separate total for each type of assistance by adding together the amount (quantity) of HACC-funded assistance received by the person on each relevant occasion of service delivery during the reporting period.

For example: if Mrs Brown received a home delivery of 14 meals each Monday over a period of 8 weeks during February and March, then for a reporting period covering January 1 to June 30 the agency would report a total amount of 112 meals received at home (i.e. 14 meals received on 8 separate occasions of service).

If Mrs Brown had also received other types of assistance measured by quantity during the reporting period, the agency would calculate and report totals for these in the same way. Where the client has received none of a given type of assistance within the reporting period the agency should report the total amount as zero.

The agency should calculate and report a total amount for each type of assistance received by the client during the reporting period regardless of whether or not the person remains a client of the agency at the end of the reporting period.

Relational attributes