We asked
From 14 August to 20 September 2024, the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) conducted a public consultation on the Pricing Framework for Australian Residential Aged Care Services 2025–26.
You said
A total of 46 submissions were received from various stakeholders. This includes older Australians, carers and families, residential aged care providers, peak bodies, government departments and agencies, and researchers.
As part of the consultation, feedback was gathered on the following areas:
- Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) branching structure and funding model
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander specialisation and base care tariffs
- homeless specialisation and base care tariffs
- residential respite care
- proposed changes to IHACPA’s residential aged care pricing principles.
Key findings from the feedback include:
- support for updates to the aged care pricing principles to better reflect current aged care pricing methodologies
- stakeholder concerns that cost differences between AN-ACC classes 2 and 3 (independent mobility classes) may be related to residents experiencing cognitive impairment, mental health conditions, challenging behaviours and complex care requirements
- support for ongoing cost collections to evaluate the costs associated with residential respite care and ensure pricing advice reflects the costs to deliver services
- stakeholder concerns with the current approach to pricing and costing of allied health care, which accounts for the level of care currently provided, not the level of allied health care clinically assessed for residents
- the need to understand the costs to deliver culturally appropriate residential aged care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including workforce support
- stakeholder requests to ensure people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and marginalised groups within the homeless population receive culturally appropriate care, through investment in specialised staff training and other resources.
We did
The Pricing Framework for Australian Residential Aged Care Services 2025–26 Consultation Report summarises the feedback received during the public consultation period.
The pricing framework and consultation report 2025–26 will inform the development of the Residential Aged Care Pricing Advice 2025–26.