Why This Pricing Review Matters and What You Can Do
IHACPA is reviewing Support at Home services pricing from mid-2026 and it matters. It will determine how much funding providers will get to deliver services, support teams, meet compliance and then hopefully still have enough left over to keep the lights on.
The risk is that pricing advice gets developed in a vacuum. Disconnected from what’s actually happening on the ground. And we all know what that leads to. First you absorb the gap. Then you cut back where you can. Eventually you either burn out or opt out.
We’ve pulled together a short submission that responds to the consultation questions on their Pricing Framework. It focuses on what we think matters - viability, workforce pressures, complexity and the CHSP transition. Nothing abstract.
You’re welcome to take our submission, copy parts of it, use it as a base or just read FYI. If you’ve got the capacity to put in your own response, we strongly recommend it.
Invox Submission to IHACPA on Support at Home Pricing (2026–27) - June 2025
Getting pricing right isn’t just about setting a fair rate. It’s about building a system where quality, access and viability aren’t at odds with each other. Where doing the right thing doesn’t come at the cost of financial survival. And where providers don’t have to choose between compliance and viability.
Support at Home was meant to be a new era for aged care. But so far, it feels like providers are being asked to build a better system with fewer tools, tighter timelines and an ad hoc approach to prices.
This submission outlines seven practical changes to the pricing framework. They won’t fix everything, but they could be the difference between a rollout that limps along and one that actually works.
Each recommendation responds to IHACPA’s consultation questions and reflects what we believe providers are navigating right now.
Q1. Do the pricing principles provide adequate guidance for IHACPA’s development of pricing advice?
The current principles offer a solid base, but there’s a key piece missing. Provider viability.
Viability isn’t just implied under sustainability. It’s a distinct, immediate concern. It’s about whether providers can continue delivering services tomorrow, not just five years from now. When viability isn’t named, it’s easy for pricing to fall short of what’s needed to keep the doors open.
And while we’re here, the word “efficiency” deserves a second look. In this sector, efficiency has been code for “do more with less” for far too long. But real efficiency means enabling providers to meet standards without running themselves into the ground. That includes funding for supervision, compliance, governance and the rising cost of delivering regulated care. If the government wants compliance and quality, pricing has to stop pretending these are free add-ons.
Formal Recommendations:
Add a standalone pricing principle for provider financial viability.
Revise the efficiency principle to explicitly include compliance, training, clinical governance and operational integrity.
Q2. Are there specific service types, locations or populations IHACPA should focus on in future cost collections?
Some services carry higher risk of underpricing. And when they’re not viable, people miss out. That’s not theoretical, it’s already happening.
We are concerned about all service types in what has been characterised by the government as ‘thin markets’. These are markets that are not working for consumers or providers.
IHACPA cost collections will need to be both robust and nuanced enough to determine the additional and diverse costs of servicing groups and areas including rural and remote services, culturally diverse and First Nations groups and older people with complex needs.
In addition, services such as allied health, dementia care, short visits and support for clients without informal carers are essential to keeping older people well at home. They’re also the first to be cut when pricing doesn’t reflect real costs. These aren’t niche cases. They’re exactly where the system fails if we keep ignoring the growing gap between policy ambition and provider reality.
Formal Recommendation:
Prioritise the depth and breadth of cost data collection for ‘thin markets’, allied health, dementia support, short visits and high-complexity clients.
Q3. How can IHACPA better support providers to participate in cost collections and improve representativeness?
Most providers aren’t avoiding IHACPA data collection because they’re lazy or indifferent. They’re avoiding it because they’re already buried in departmental reporting, compliance upgrades, policy updates and trying to explain Support at Home to confused clients who still don’t understand it.
If the government wants accurate data, it needs to stop making the process harder than it needs to be. Let providers link data with existing systems. Let trusted intermediaries support organisations in an easier way. Offer a lite data collection version for smaller organisations that don’t have a large finance or compliance team. Otherwise we’ll keep getting data that reflects the top end of town and pricing that excludes the rest.
Formal Recommendations:
Simplify and automate cost collection templates.
Enable trusted intermediaries to assist with data reporting.
Offer streamlined collection methods for small or low-capacity providers.rs.
Q6. What provider or participant-related factors should IHACPA consider in the transition of CHSP to Support at Home?
There’s no easy way to say it. Most of CHSP doesn’t naturally fit under Support at Home. The two programs are built on different assumptions. One around individualised funding and market logic. The other on community support, block funding and preventative care.
That said, some CHSP services, like domestic assistance or individual support can fit the Support at Home model. But others simply don’t. Group social support, transport, meals and volunteer-supported services have a different structure, different supply and demand dynamics and different outcomes.
If the government is determined to merge the programs, then the pricing model needs to reflect that complexity. Treating CHSP like a smaller version of HCP doesn’t just flatten funding models. It risks flattening the outcomes too.
We’re already seeing CHSP providers facing impossible decisions. The shift to minute-based pricing undermines viability for the very services that keep people connected, independent and out of hospital. These aren’t extras. They’re the backbone of preventative care.
Pricing needs to recognise that a mix of fixed and variable funding is essential. So is a separate costing structure that doesn’t assume all CHSP services can or should be delivered the same way as packaged care. We can’t fold one system into another and expect it to work.
Formal Recommendation:
Include transition-related costs such as ICT upgrades, training, compliance adaptation and communications in Support at Home pricing advice.
Establish a separate pricing model for CHSP, recognising its unique service mix, volunteer base and preventative function.
Retain a hybrid funding structure for CHSP services that includes both fixed (block) and variable components to protect service continuity.
Q7. What future priorities should IHACPA consider when developing pricing advice?
Flat-rate pricing only works if every client has the same needs. They don’t.
Clients with dementia, trauma histories or no informal support need more. More time. More planning. More staff. And more of everything that matters in aged care. If the pricing doesn’t account for that, providers have to choose between absorbing the cost or quietly stepping away from the most vulnerable clients.
On top of that, we have a workforce exodus on our hands. And it’s not hard to see why. If aged care can’t compete, we won’t have a workforce. Pricing can’t fix every workforce issue, but it can stop making it worse.
Formal Recommendations:
Introduce complexity loadings for high-need clients.
Benchmark aged care pricing against NDIS and DVA to ensure equity across the care economy.
We’re not asking for a perfect system. We’re asking for a fair one. One that accounts for what it really takes to deliver care, not just what the policy spreadsheet hoped it might.
These recommendations aren’t radical. They’re practical. They reflect what providers are already doing, often without enough funding to do it well. Pricing should support those efforts, not quietly undermine them.
We appreciate the consultative approach IHACPA is taking. We also know it's the government, not IHACPA, that sets the rules of the game. But if this next phase of reform is going to work, it’s time the pricing reflected what providers have been saying all along. Quality care isn’t cheap and cheap care isn’t quality.
Submissions close 18 July 2025. To have your say, visit ihacpa.gov.au/consultations.
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