Residential aged care

Our role in residential aged care

The Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) was established under the National Health Reform Act 2011 (Cth) and charged with providing independent and evidence-based pricing and costing advice to the Australian Government across the health and aged care sectors.

As part of our role, we provide pricing and costing advice on residential aged care and residential respite care to the Minister for Health and Ageing. It is the government who then determines and announces the price for aged care services.

Aged care pricing roles and responsibilities 

To support our work, we:

• undertake regular cost collections
• consider other available cost and activity data such as the Aged Care Financial Report and Quarterly Financial Report data
• seek input from stakeholders through annual public consultations
• work closely with our advisory committees. 

Our pricing advice process

IHACPA’s pricing and costing advice informs government decisions on the funding of residential aged care and residential respite care using the Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC). 

Current and upcoming activities 

There are opportunities to have your say and participate in the development of our pricing and costing advice each year. Subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date about upcoming activities. 

• Consultation open – 10 July to 22 August 2025
• Expansion of the Residential Aged Care Cost Collection (RACCC) 2024–25

Additional resources

• Consultation Paper on the Pricing Framework for Australian Residential Aged Care Services 2026–27 (PDF format)
• Consultation Paper on the Pricing Framework for Australian Residential Aged Care Services 2026–27 (HTML format)
• IHACPA aged care cost collections
• IHACPA Residential aged care consultation fact sheet
• IHACPA Our role in aged care fact sheet
• IHACPA Residential aged care FAQs
• Department of Health, Disability and Ageing Residential aged care resources and webinars