Independent Review backs specialist designation for aged care financial advice
For anyone who has spent time providing aged care financial advice, the frustration is familiar. A family arrives at a residential aged care service under enormous stress, facing decisions that are financially significant and time-sensitive, and the person they are speaking to, whether that is the provider's admissions staff, or someone at the front desk, is not in a position to give them advice.
Staff at the aged care service, and even the Centrelink Financial Information Service (FIS) officers or aged care placement services cannot, and should not, give financial advice. Their guidance should be limited to information. They can explain what contributions are payable and how a refundable accommodation deposit (RAD) works, but they are not licensed to tell a family whether cashing investments to pay the RAD is the right decision for their circumstances or how to structure finances.
The distinction been information and advice has always mattered. A government review has now said so formally.
The Independent Review of Residential Aged Care Accommodation Pricing, released at the end of April 2026 by Nigel Ray PSM and Associate Professor Nicole Sutton, makes a clear recommendation: financial advice on aged care should only be provided by licensed financial advisers who hold an aged care specialist designation.
The Review specifically names the FAAA Aged Care Specialist designation, with education delivered through the Aged Care Steps Accredited Aged Care Professional program, as a standard that should apply.
It also calls on the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing to work directly with the FAAA to ensure the program's training content is accurate and current. That is not a passing reference. It is a formal recommendation that the designation be treated as the benchmark for specialist aged care advice capability.
Why this recommendation exists
The Review documents what financial advisers already know from experience - the aged care system has become genuinely complex, and that complexity is increasing.
The report projects that the number of Australians in residential care will more than double over the next two decades, from just under 200,000 people today to more than 400,000 by 2044.
Much of that growth will involve people living with dementia, people with limited assets, and people making the transition under acute time pressure. At the same time, the funding arrangements that govern how residential aged care is paid have been shifting towards greater user contributions, with further recommendations for accommodation pricing changes.
The Review found that many older Australians do not understand their payment options. Some mistakenly believe a lump sum RAD is the only way to pay for aged care. Others do not know that government support is available if their means are assessed as low. When the people they turn to for guidance are not equipped or authorised to give advice, the consequences may be financially damaging, and the decisions, once made, are difficult to reverse.
This is precisely the problem Aged Care Steps identified in our January 2026 White Paper, The Risk of Unregulated Aged Care Advice: Protecting Older Australians and Ensuring Quality Advice. The Review's recommendation reflects this analysis.
What this means for advisers
If you hold the Aged Care Steps Accredited Aged Care Professional, the policy environment is moving in a direction that recognises and supports your expertise and this is the pathway to the FAAA Aged Care Specialist designation.
The Review's recommendation has not been adopted as law and the Government has not yet responded, but it signals a clear direction that aged care financial advice should sit with qualified, licensed professionals, not drift into the hands of whoever happens to be in the room.
For advisers who have been considering formalising their aged care capability, it is important to recognise that aged care advice is not a niche that sits at the edge of financial planning. It is a central core of effective retirement planning.
For many Australians, aged care funding is the largest financial decision of later life, made at a moment when they are least equipped to navigate it alone. The advisers who can meet that need, with the licensing, training and designation to back it, are the ones who will be most valuable to their clients in the years ahead.