StewartBrown warns Govt on home care price caps

Home care operators achieved an average profit margin of 5.3% for the September 2025 quarter, up from 4.0% in the September 2024 quarter, according to StewartBrown’s Aged Care Financial Performance Survey Sector Report, released on Wednesday (11 February).

Despite the improvement, the result is still well below StewartBrown’s recommended 9.5% margin – the level it considers necessary to make operators “investable” – according to a separate analysis of Support at Home pricing released on Thursday (12 February).

That analysis recommended margins should be high enough for home care providers to achieve sufficient return on capital “to invest in technology and innovative service types and delivery methods to improve the outcomes for participants”.

But with price caps set to commence on 1 July 2026 – less than five months’ time – StewartBrown has a warning for Government: if caps are set too low, home care operators could be driven out of business.

The report notes that Support at Home prices are, on average, 39% higher than Home Care Package prices. StewartBrown also found that care management – which was pooled at 10% from 1 November 2025 – accounted for 18.0% of total revenue in the September 2025 quarter.

Other key findings of the Survey Sector Report are:

• The average home care operating result for the September 2025 quarter rose to a surplus of $4.70 per client day (pcd), up from $3.36 pcd the previous year. The stronger performance was underpinned by higher revenue utilisation, which increased t0 89.6% of available package funding, compared with 85.2% a year earlier.
• The number of people in a Home Care Package reached a record 296,852 at the end of the quarter, up 1.3% on the previous quarter.
• Average internal staff hours per client per week declined to 5.15 hours, down from 5.40 hours in September 2024 – and well below the nine-hour average provided prior to the implementation of Consumer Directed Care in 2015. StewartBrown suggested the decline could reflect increased use of third-party providers.
• Home care consumer contributions represent less than 2.0% of total funding.
• Unspent funds now average $15,486 per client, up from $15,221 a year earlier. Unspent funds now total more than $4.45 billion – capital sitting idle.

StewartBrown’s September 2025 Aged Care Financial Performance Survey captured results from 87,320 Home Care Packages, or 29% of the sector.

You can download the StewartBrown reports here.

You can read our article on StewartBrown's residential aged care analysis here.