The National Rural Health Alliance (the Alliance) made a submission to the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) Consultation Paper: Pricing Framework for Australian Support at Home Aged Care Services 2026-27.
The Alliance outlined the importance of appropriately funding for thin or no markets – rural providers operate in an environment with significantly higher transportation costs and outreach costs; lower economies of scale in all aspects of service delivery; higher costs attributable to telecommunications infrastructure, connectivity and maintenance; reliance on agency and locum arrangements to fill workforce gaps; and higher fuel and energy costs, food, materials, consumables and insurance. The providers in these areas need to be supported and funded with sufficient rural loadings to offset these increased costs with the concomitant reduction in the numbers of people in more sparsely distributed geographic locations.
Replacing automatic rural loadings with grant applications for many services further threatens ongoing care delivery in high-cost underserviced areas. For rural and remote providers, grant applications add another layer of administrative burden, add to financial risk, and assume a level of internal resources, governance capacity, IT and digital access that many providers are stretched to cover. Compliance and accreditation costs can be disproportionately expensive for smaller providers of support at home aged care services with limited administrative staff.
A range of other issues were noted including the need for funding to allow flexibility and locally tailored service models as well as funding to compensate and help providers prepare for the impact of a changing climate in rural locations affecting older community members and their care requirements as well as placed pressure on service infrastructure.