Find a quality aged care home without doing it alone
Choosing an aged care home is one of the hardest decisions a family makes — and it often arrives with no warning. CareAbout is a free, independent service that shortlists vetted, compliant homes near you.
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Quality homes only
We vet homes for quality and compliance before we ever put them in front of you.
Free & independent
We don’t own any homes. We compare and shortlist, at no cost to you.
Options, not one home
You get a shortlist to choose from — never a single home you feel pushed toward.
No obligation
Tour, ask questions, walk away. No pressure at any point.
This Is Rarely a Decision You Saw Coming
For most families, an aged care home isn’t planned over months. It starts with a fall, a hospital admission, or a phone call saying Mum can’t safely go home. Suddenly you’re being asked to make a permanent decision for someone you love — often within days, and often while a hospital needs the bed.
It is stressful, it is emotional, and almost nobody feels ready. Guilt, disagreement between siblings, and the fear of getting it wrong are all completely normal.
You don’t have to work it out alone. A CareAbout Care Adviser has done this hundreds of times. We know which homes suit the level of care needed, which have a compliance record worth trusting, and which questions actually matter once you are standing in the foyer.
Vetted
Quality and compliance checked
We only put forward homes that meet our standards.
A shortlist
Options, never just one
So the choice for your loved one stays yours to make.
Straight answers
Availability changes daily
No service can honestly promise you a bed. We tell you who to call, what to ask, and how to keep checking.
How It Works
Three steps, with a real person alongside you for all of them.
Tell us what’s happening
Two minutes online, or one phone call. Where you are, what level of care is needed, and how quickly you need to move.
We shortlist vetted homes
A Care Adviser checks quality, compliance and whether the home actually suits the care needed, then comes back with a shortlist worth your time.
You tour and you choose
You call the homes and book the tours yourself — walking in is the only way to get a real feel for a place. We give you the questions to ask and put the fees side by side.
Aged Care Home or Retirement Village?
They get used interchangeably, and they are not remotely the same thing.
Aged care home
- What it is
- A home where personal and clinical care is provided around the clock — help with showering, dressing, meals, medication and nursing.
- Who regulates it
- Funded and regulated by the Australian Government, with star ratings published on My Aged Care.
- Getting in
- You need an ACAT assessment (ACAS in Victoria) approving permanent residential care.
- Who pays
- You contribute and the government funds the rest. Fees are means tested.
Retirement village
- What it is
- Housing for people who can still live independently. Some offer optional services, but no funded personal or clinical care.
- Who regulates it
- State-based retirement village legislation and your contract — not the aged care system.
- Getting in
- No assessment needed. You buy, lease or licence a unit.
- Who pays
- You do, in full. Watch the ingoing contribution, the ongoing fees and the deferred management fee when you leave.
Permanent Care or Respite?
Respite is often the softer first step — and it buys you time to decide properly.
Short-term stay
- How long
- Up to 63 subsidised days a financial year, with an extension of up to 21 days where it is approved.
- When it is used
- After a hospital stay, when a carer needs a break, or as a trial run before anyone commits.
- What you pay
- A basic daily fee only. No accommodation payment, no means-tested care fee.
- Assessment
- Needs an ACAT approval for respite specifically.
Ongoing care
- How long
- Ongoing. This becomes home.
- When it is used
- When care needs can no longer be safely met at home, even with a package in place.
- What you pay
- A basic daily fee, an accommodation payment (RAD or DAP), and possibly a means-tested care fee.
- Assessment
- Needs an ACAT approval for permanent residential care.
How You Apply: Assessment and Referral Codes
Government-subsidised aged care always starts with an assessment. Nobody can move into a subsidised home without one, so it’s worth starting early — even if you’re not sure yet.
Request an assessment
Call My Aged Care on 1800 200 422, or we can walk you through it. If your loved one is in hospital, the hospital team can start it there.
Have the assessment
A trained assessor visits at home or in hospital and determines the level of care approved. Allow up to about eight weeks — hospital cases move faster.
Get your codes and apply
You receive a support plan and referral codes. You give a code to each home you apply to — and you should apply to more than one.
Do the means assessment at the same time
Alongside the care assessment, Services Australia (or DVA) works out what you’ll contribute from income and assets. Allow around four to six weeks. Starting it early is the single best way to avoid a delay later, because a home can’t confirm your fees without it.
What an Aged Care Home Actually Costs
There is no single price. What you pay depends on the home, the room, your income and assets, and which set of fee rules you fall under. Here’s the whole picture.
If you entered care on or after 1 Nov 2025
A basic daily fee, a means-tested hotelling contribution, a means-tested non-clinical care contribution, an accommodation payment, and optionally a higher everyday living fee.
If you were already in care before then
You keep the older rules: a basic daily fee, a means-tested care fee, an accommodation payment, and optionally a higher everyday living fee.
| Fee | Who pays it | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Basic daily feeEveryday living — meals, laundry, cleaning, power. Set by government at 85% of the single basic age pension, so it moves when the pension moves. Roughly $24,382 a year at the current rate. | Everyone pays this | up to $66.80 / day |
| Hotelling contributionA further contribution toward those same daily living services. Government normally pays this to the home as a “hotelling supplement” — but above the income and asset thresholds you pay some or all of it instead. Below them, government keeps paying it in full. | 1 Nov 2025 rules · means tested | up to $22.15 / day |
| Non-clinical care contributionToward help with bathing, moving around and lifestyle activities. Only asked of people already paying the full hotelling contribution. It stops permanently once you have contributed $137,917.01 in total, or after four years of paying it — whichever comes first. Clinical care is always fully government funded. | 1 Nov 2025 rules | means tested |
| Means-tested care feeThe older equivalent of the care contribution above. Most people pay nothing. Annual and lifetime caps apply — the lifetime cap is $137,917.01. | 1 July 2014 rules | $0 – $372.03 / day |
| Accommodation paymentWhat you pay for the room itself, published by each home. If your income is below $35,521.20 and assets below $64,500.00, government pays your accommodation in full. | RAD, DAP or a combination | set by the home |
| Higher everyday living feeOptional, for a higher standard of everyday services — better outlook, premium meals, hairdressing, wi-fi. It cannot be agreed or charged before you enter care, and cannot be a condition of getting a room. You get a 28-day cooling-off period, and the agreement must be reviewed at least yearly. Financial hardship assistance does not cover it. | Only if you choose it | optional |
What government covers, and what it doesn’t
Government pays: your clinical care, always and in full; most or all of the care subsidy to the home; and — if your means are low — your accommodation and daily living contributions too. You pay: the basic daily fee, your means-tested contributions, your accommodation payment if your means are above the thresholds, and anything optional you choose to add.
Figures current as at August 2026, from My Aged Care. The basic daily fee moves with the age pension on 20 March and 20 September; caps and thresholds are also indexed. Room prices and any higher everyday living fee are set by each home. Use the My Aged Care fee estimator for an estimate based on your own circumstances, and speak to an aged care financial adviser before committing to a large accommodation payment. This is general information, not financial advice.
RAD or DAP: How You Pay for the Room
Two ways to pay the same accommodation price. The room does not change; the cash flow does.
RAD — refundable accommodation deposit
- How it works
- A single lump sum covering the room, agreed with the home before moving in.
- Do you get it back?
- Yes. The balance is refunded to the resident or their estate after they leave, once the paperwork is settled.
- Watch out for
- Finding the lump sum usually means selling or renting a house. Get financial advice before you do either.
DAP — daily accommodation payment
- How it works
- The same room price, paid as a daily amount instead — the RAD converted using the government’s maximum permissible interest rate.
- Do you get it back?
- No. Like rent, it is not refunded.
- Watch out for
- The interest rate is reset quarterly. Ask what your daily figure is at the current rate before you sign anything.
You can combine them, and you get 28 days to decide
Part lump sum, the rest daily, is allowed and common. You also have 28 days from the day of entry to choose how you pay — nobody can push you into deciding on day one.
Low Care, High Care and Memory Support
Homes describe this differently. What matters is what they can actually deliver, and for how long.
Low care
Help with the everyday — showering, dressing, medication prompts, meals and laundry. Residents are largely mobile and largely independent.
High care
Around-the-clock nursing: complex medication, wound care, continence support, mobility assistance and, where it is needed, palliative care.
Memory support
A secure area designed for people living with dementia, staffed by people trained in dementia care, with layouts built to reduce confusion and wandering risk.
Care needs change — ask what happens then
The question that matters most on a tour is what happens when care needs increase. Can the home manage it in place, or would your parent have to move again?
How to Choose the Right Home
Four things decide it, and only one of them is the building.
Location
Pick somewhere people will actually visit. A home twenty minutes closer gets far more visits across a year than one across town with a slightly nicer dining room.
Availability
A perfect home with nothing free for four months is not an option this week. Availability moves daily, so ask every home on your shortlist where their waitlist actually sits — and ask again a week later.
Star ratings and compliance
My Aged Care publishes a star rating for every home covering staffing, quality measures and residents’ experience. Check for compliance notices while you are there.
Fees in writing
Ask for the RAD, the DAP at today’s rate, the basic daily fee and any extra service fee — all on one page, from every home, so you can compare like for like.
What to Look For on a Tour
- Does it smell clean, or does it smell of cleaning products covering something?
- Are residents up, dressed and out of their rooms?
- Do staff greet residents by name?
- How many staff are on the floor right now — and overnight?
- What is the registered nurse coverage after hours?
- Is there outdoor space residents can actually get to on their own?
- Ask to see a week of menus, and eat a meal there if they will let you.
- What does the activities calendar look like on a Sunday, not just a Tuesday?
- Are visiting hours genuinely open, or open with conditions?
- How has the home been going with staff turnover?
- What happens if care needs increase — can they manage it in place?
- Ask for every fee in writing before you leave the building.
Shortlist three, don’t fixate on one
Families who tour three homes decide faster and second-guess themselves less. Settling on one home before you have walked through it is how people end up back at the start.
Once You’ve Chosen: Moving In
The part nobody explains, in the order it actually happens.
Accept and sign
The home makes a written offer. Read the resident agreement properly — especially the extra service fees and what happens if care needs change.
Sort fees and paperwork
Lodge the Services Australia means assessment if it has not been done, and confirm how the room is being paid for. You have 28 days from entry to settle on RAD, DAP or a combination.
Move in and settle
Bring familiar things — photos, a chair, a quilt. Expect a few unsettled weeks. Most homes will ask you to give it a month before you judge how it is going.
Doing it alone vs doing it with us
Especially when the hospital needs an answer this week.
- Ringing home after home to ask if they have a bed
- No way to know which homes have compliance problems
- Working out RAD, DAP and means testing from scratch
- Touring places that were never suitable
- Deciding under pressure because only one bed was offered
- A shortlist of homes worth your call, not every home in the postcode
- Only vetted, compliant homes reach your shortlist
- The fees explained in plain English before you sign
- You tour the homes yourself, with a checklist of what to look for
- A choice of homes, so the decision stays yours
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions families ask us most in the first phone call.
Is CareAbout’s service really free?
Yes, it’s free to you. We’re paid a referral fee by the homes we choose to work with, and only after a successful placement. That payment doesn’t come out of your aged care fees, and you never see a bill from us.
Do we need an assessment before you can help?
No. Plenty of families come to us before they’ve started with My Aged Care, and we’ll explain how to get the assessment underway. You will need it before anyone can move into a subsidised home, so the earlier it starts the better.
What’s the difference between a nursing home and an aged care home?
Nothing — they’re the same thing. “Nursing home” is the older everyday term; “aged care home” or “residential aged care” is the official one. Both mean accommodation with 24-hour personal and clinical care.
How quickly can someone move in?
It depends on availability and whether the assessment is done. With an approved assessment and a referral code, a bed can sometimes be arranged within days. Without the assessment, that’s the step that sets the timeline.
Do we have to sell the family home?
Not necessarily. Paying a daily accommodation payment instead of a lump sum is precisely how many families avoid selling. It changes the numbers rather than the care, and it can affect pension and means-testing — which is why we suggest an aged care financial adviser before you commit.
What if the first home isn’t the right fit?
There’s no obligation to proceed with any home we suggest. Tell us why it isn’t right and we’ll look at other options — that’s the reason we give you a shortlist rather than a single recommendation.
What areas do you cover?
Australia-wide. Availability varies, and some regional areas have fewer homes to choose from — we’ll be upfront about what’s realistic where you’re looking.
Let’s Find a Home Worth Moving Into
Tell us what is happening and a Care Adviser will come back with a shortlist of quality, compliant homes near you — and explain the fees in plain English.
CareAbout is free for families to use. We are paid a referral fee by the aged care homes in our network after a successful placement. It does not come out of your aged care fees and it does not change what the home charges you. We only put forward homes we have checked.