Care providers grapple with complex My Aged Care website

Opposition ageing spokesman Shayne Neumann told parliament in September the My Aged Care website and the hotline remained difficult to navigate, complex and "very flawed".

He said providers had told him "they have got almost no referrals through the My Aged Care Website".

"Indeed, if they had not had people on their waiting lists they would not have had anything happen in the last few months - that is simply not good enough."

The industry has raised concerns about slow response times and a backlog in processing referrals to home care providers and aged care assessment teams since the My Aged Care referral system went live on July 1.

The system was created to allow carers, assessors and providers to receive, view, accept and track referrals electronically.

The Department of Social Services said problems with call centre software had contributed to the issue.

The department boosted call centre staff to 250 to help deal with the change.

Aged and Community Services Australia chief executive John Kelly said some providers had not "activated" their services on My Aged Care "as the instructions were not as clear as they could have been".

The short timeframe in moving to the new system had also caused some confusion around how to activate services.

Of the 2000 plus aged care organisations identified in My Aged Care systems only about 37 per cent had taken all the steps needed to enable outlets to receive and process referrals.

The My Aged Care call centre is receiving about 16,000 calls each week and between July 1 and August 30 more than 29,000 clients were registered in the new system.

More than 23,000 referrals for home support assessment and 6500 referrals for comprehensive assessment were processed by aged care assessment teams.

The system is currently processing about 10,000 referrals each week.