Home care profit margins down
Home care providers’ profit margins have decreased, according to the sector’s latest report.
Home care providers’ profit margins have decreased, according to the sector’s latest financial report.
Released last week, the Quarterly Financial Snapshot – October to December 2022 showed profits dipping by $1.41 – $3.59 per recipient per day compared to $5.00 July to September ‘22.
Overall, the percentage of profitable home care providers fell by 4.6 per cent to 73.8 per cent – compared to 78.4 per cent of providers at the September 2022 year-to-date position.
Collectively, for-profit and not-for-profit home care providers made a net profit before tax of $138.5 million during the period.
Median total staff cost was $44 per care recipient per day – down a dollar from the previous quarter.
For-profit metropolitan providers reported the highest median total staff cost per client per day – $48. Meanwhile, the median total staff costs per client per day decreased from $48 to $40 for for-profit regional providers.
Compared to quarter 1, the median cost per resident per day increased for all workforce categories except for personal care workers.
Total staff includes:
- RNs
- ENs
- personal care workers
- allied health
- other direct care
- care management
- administration
- non-care.
Hourly rates remained more or less consistent with quarter 1: $50 for RNs, $37 for ENs and $32 for personal care workers.
The average hourly rate is reported by providers by calculating the average hourly rate of direct care staff employed as per the employee award, agreement or contract – it does not include on-costs, penalty rates or casual loading.
Median staff minutes was 54.11 minutes per care recipient per day. As the QFS authors note, unlike residential aged care, there is no target or mandated care minutes for home care providers.
Time increased for all categories except allied health workers which remained the same as quarter 1.
As of December 2022, the total amount of unspent home care package funds rose to $2.60 billion, up from $2.40 billion the previous quarter.
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