Residential profit grows, home care stable
Alongside a boost to NPBT in the residential care sector, the department’s latest data snapshot shows an increase in total care minutes.
The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has published the April to June 2025 Quarterly Financial Snapshot.
For the residential care sector, the 2024-25 Q4 report shows net profit before tax was up $7.82 per resident per day – now $16.04 – from Q4 in 2023-24. But earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation were down $2.19 – now at $42.73.
The percentage of profitable providers with a positive year-to-date EBITDA was up by 2.8 percentage points, reaching 85.5 per cent. Out of the profitable providers with a positive EBITDA, 91.5 per cent were for-profit and 82.1 per cent were not-for-profit.
The NPBT of the sector almost doubled from $571.3 million in Q4 2023-24 to $1.12 billion in Q4 this year.
The department attributed this to sector revenue growth of 8.9 per cent, which exceeded the sector expense growth of 7.2 per cent.
The sector EBITDA was $3 billion, with an average margin of 9.4 per cent, down from 10.6 per cent in Q4 2023-24.
The snapshot also shows seven new residential care providers as of 30 June and 36 exiting providers, bringing the total number of providers to 707.
Care minute targets up
Total care minutes per resident per day were up for the sector, reaching 218.87, according to the department’s data.
This is higher than the 213.33 care minutes recorded by Mirus Australia in their June benchmarking report – with a quarter average of 211.57 minutes – but is close to the 217.18 minutes recorded by StewartBrown in its Aged Care Financial Performance Survey Report (FY25) for the sector.
Registered nurse time was more consistent across the three data sets, with the department reporting 44.71 minutes for Q4, and StewartBrown reporting 43.70 minutes. Mirus Australia recorded an average of 43.53 RN minutes across the quarter, and 43.72 for the month of June specifically.
Home care position stable
In home care, NPBT per resident per day was $5.71, and EBITDA was $6.18 for the quarter, up $0.02 and $0.14 respectively from Q4 2023-24.
Sector EBITDA was a positive $598.4 million, the department noted, up from $561.6 million. But the median EBITDA margin was 6.7 per cent, down 0.8 percentage points.
The percentage of profitable providers YTD was down 1 percentage point to 75.7 per cent, but NPBT grew to $553.1 million in Q4 2024-25 from $528.8 million last year.
There was also a decline in the margin, which the department attributes to expense growth of 10.6 per cent exceeding revenue growth of 9.8 per cent in 2024-25.
The department pointed to the 4.2 per cent increase in claim days and an increase in utilisation of Home Care Packages. Labour costs are the driver of rising expenses, according to the report.
The department also noted 53 home care providers entered the sector, and 39 left, bringing the total to 923.
Comment on the story below. Follow Australian Ageing Agenda on LinkedIn and Facebook, sign up to our twice-weekly newsletter and subscribe to AAA magazine for the complete aged care picture.
