Consultation - Financial Advice for People Accessing Aged Care

Regulating aged care advice to protect older Australians.

Access to financial advice is critical to making well-informed aged care decisions – decisions around what care costs and how to structure finances to afford the care needed.

Aged Care Steps (ACS) is exploring how older Australians and their families access financial advice to support their aged care decisions. It is our aim to ensure older Australians have access to affordable quality advice in a safe and regulated environment.

In particular, ACS is exploring who is providing the advice and how this advice is provided, with considerations for the quality and ethical implications of the advice provided. This will include consideration of the legislative framework that underpins the provision of aged care financial advice.

We invite all stakeholders within the financial services sector, aged care sector and other connected support areas to share their views and experiences via our stakeholder survey. We are also interested in hearing the experiences of people who have been accessing the care system, in relation to where and how they sought financial advice. Your insights will inform a white paper highlighting the findings as well as areas needing reform.

The consultation period is now closed.

Consultation - Page Contents:

Background

Aged care financial advice is currently provided by a number of sources, and the range of services varies greatly. It can often be difficult for people to find where to get help and to understand the differences in advice provided – ie. whether they are receiving information only, general advice or comprehensive personal advice.

Strategic and financially complex aged care advice is increasingly provided to older Australians by unlicensed and unregulated businesses and services. These outcomes risk leading to a prevalence of superficial, often conflicted advice, no regulatory oversight, and a lack of essential consumer protections, which may place the client at substantial risk and lead to decisions that are not well-informed.

This area needs to be examined to be better understood. A key issue to explore is whether individuals and entities who provide aged care financial advice need to be authorised under an Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) and comply with financial advice laws, regulations and ethical codes.

Our focus is on ensuring that aged care advice is provided in the best interests of older Australians and their families, not only on day one of their aged care need but throughout their entire care period as well as the impact on families afterwards.

For further information, refer to our background discussion paper.

Stakeholder insights and experience

As part of this project, we sought information from a wide range of participants, including those providing aged care financial advice and those receiving this advice.

  • AFSLs and advice providers such as financial planners, accountants, lawyers and aged care consultants.

  • Aged care service providers including care providers, placement services, peak bodies, and social workers.

  • Consumers including individuals, carers, families and consumer groups.

  • Other interested people or groups.

Those interested were encouraged to provide feedback and insights on their experiences with aged care financial advice via our consultation survey. The survey has now closed.

 FAQs

  • This discussion paper and consultation survey have been developed to explore and understand how advice is being provided to older Australians and their families when they are deciding how to pay for aged care. The aim is to identify gaps, challenges, and opportunities for improvement to ensure that advice and support are effective, comprehensive, and in the best interests of people accessing care.

    Our focus is on understanding current practices in the provision of financial advice as it relates to aged care funding choices for people, including:

    ● evaluating the current solutions available

    ● identifying the challenges in accessing accurate and professional advice and

    ● understanding the effectiveness of these solutions in protecting people.

  • No, this discussion paper does not consider the cost of providing aged care or who pays for aged care services. It is focused on how to support older Australians and their families in better understanding the financial decisions they need to make and the impact of these decisions.

  • The consultation closed at 5.00pm (Sydney time) on 10 May 2024.

  • The input from this consultation process will inform a white paper highlighting the findings. Proposals for improvements in the regulation of personal advice and education will be considered. Our focus is ensuring that aged care advice is provided in the best interests of older Australians and their families, not only on day one of their aged care needs but also throughout their aged care period and the impact on families afterwards. If you would like a copy of the White Paper once it is completed, email consultation@agedcaresteps.com.au

  • Aged Care Steps Pty Ltd is the industry leader in aged care financial advice. Our aim is to ensure older Australians and their families are able to make fully informed decisions about how to access and fund aged care, by supporting advice professionals to build aged care advice into their businesses.

    The team at Aged Care Steps are well-respected experts in the field of aged care financial advice and have led the way over the last 26 years with promoting the value of aged care advice and building the expertise of those providing advice.

    Aged Care Steps provides a suite of training workshops and practical tools to support each stage of the advice process.

Contact us

If you have questions about the consultation process, white paper or your survey submission that were not answered by our FAQ above, please contact us via consultation@agedcaresteps.com.au