Once the eligibility and entitlement engine processes the new reassessment details, it must then determine if any previous reassessments exist.
To determine if any previous reassessments exist, the eligibility and entitlement engine retrieves a list of the previous reassessment balances for the case nominee. If this list is not empty, the previous reassessment flag is set to true. Based on the sample data, a previous reassessment balance does exist for James Smith. This is the overpayment with a value of 5 that resulted from the first change in circumstance as described in Multiple Reassessment Processing.
If a previous reassessment does exist, the eligibility and entitlement engine must take into consideration any previous over or underpayments when calculating the value of the new over or underpayments. Thus, the eligibility and entitlement engine must adjust the value of the new over or underpayment according to the value of the existing over or underpayment.
To adjust the value of the new over or underpayment, the eligibility and entitlement engine calculates the difference between the previous reassessment balance and the new reassessment. If the value of the previous reassessment balance is greater than the value of the new reassessment, the eligibility and entitlement engine resets the new reassessment value to be the difference between the two values and it also resets the new reassessment to be an overpayment. If the value of the previous reassessment balance is less than the value of the new reassessment, the eligibility and entitlement engine resets the new reassessment value to be the difference between the two values and it resets the new reassessment to be an underpayment.
The previous reassessment balance = -5; the new reassessment balance = 38; therefore, the previous reassessment balance is < than the new reassessment balance.
The eligibility and entitlement engine resets the new reassessment value to be the difference between the two values and it resets the new reassessment to be an underpayment:
38 - 5 = 33
The total difference, 33, shows there is an underpayment for this reassessment period in the amount of 33. The eligibility and entitlement engine processes this overpayment according to the settings for the benefit product (see Over or Underpayment Processing for a Benefit Case).