ACIF 2025 | Reforming Care: How Deregulation Is Reshaping Australia’s Aged Care System
「Our mission is to preserve community aged care — technology enables it, capital supports it, but leadership and governance decide who survives reform.」— Stephen Becsi OAM, Apollo Care
The article is based on the ACIF 2025 session and interview with Stephen Becsi OAM, CEO of Apollo Care Management, at Cares Expo Taipei.
Australia’s aged care sector is entering a period of profound transformation. A rapidly aging population, rising consumer expectations, and structural regulatory change are reshaping how care is funded, delivered, and governed. At the center of this shift is the upcoming new Aged Care Act, set to take effect in November 2025, which will move the system toward a consumer-directed funding model—where funding is increasingly allocated to older people directly, rather than to the providers who deliver services.
This reform fundamentally changes the power dynamic in aged care. Older adults will have more choice, flexibility, and control over how and where they receive care. Providers, by contrast, will face greater scrutiny, higher compliance obligations, and stronger competition.
“The Act is introducing stronger care quality standards and far more complex compliance requirements,” said Becsi. “There are 22 key provider obligations and seven strengthened quality standards that break down into over 140 required actions. For standalone operators without scale or governance systems, the risk of failure is very real.”
The new environment brings opportunity for innovation—but also pressure, particularly for small and community-based organizations that have historically played crucial roles in residential and home-based care.
A Demographic Wave Meets a System in Transition
Australia’s older population is expanding rapidly. The Baby Boomer generation—those born between 1946 and 1964—is now entering the 65+ age bracket, driving sustained demand across the continuum of care. Their preferences, however, differ markedly from those of previous generations: they expect autonomy, meaningful choice, and increasingly, the ability to remain at home for as long as possible.
This shift is reflected clearly in market dynamics:
Home care has seen a 283% increase in clients between 2017 and 2024, with 277,000 recipients currently receiving Home Care Packages.
Residential aged care remains significant, serving around 224,000 places nationwide, but residents entering facilities today tend to be later in life and have more complex health needs.
Demand for palliative and end-of-life care is rising due to increased longevity and chronic illness.
These shifts are unfolding just as the government is introducing a new regulatory and funding framework that prioritizes individualized care, stronger accountability, and service diversity. For providers lacking technological infrastructure, skilled management, and financial resilience, the heightened regulatory burden has already become difficult to sustain—contributing to increasing closures and industry consolidation.
“At times of deregulation, there are winners and losers,” Becsi said. “Complexity, workforce pressure, and rising expectations are driving providers to either scale up or exit.”
The Rapid Growth of Home Care
As Australia increasingly aligns with international trends in aging policy, home-based and community-based care is expected to grow faster than any other segment. The new Act and the forthcoming Support at Home program both prioritize services that enable older adults to stay in their homes longer through:
Home modifications
Community nursing
Allied health
Digital monitoring and remote safety technologies
Flexible, individualized support plans
“The shift to home care is not a trend—it is a policy direction,” Becsi emphasized. “The system is being designed around the home first. Residential care remains essential, but home care is where growth will be strongest.”
Technology will be a key enabler—fall prevention sensors, remote monitoring, telehealth, and care coordination platforms will help support older adults with increasing acuity at home.
The Rise of Apollo Care: A Different Approach to Consolidation
It is against this backdrop that Apollo Care entered the sector in 2020. Instead of acquiring assets to build a traditional corporate aged care chain, Apollo Care developed a new governance and ownership structure designed specifically to rescue and revitalize not-for-profit community aged care providers that were at risk of closure.
What makes the model distinctive is that Apollo Care does not erase the identities of the organizations it acquires. Local names, community relationships, and charitable identities are preserved. What changes is the operational backbone: governance, compliance, workforce systems, technology platforms, finance oversight, capital improvement planning, and culture development.
“What we did had never been done before,” Becsi said. “We found a way for a private company to raise capital and use it to strengthen not-for-profits. We don’t take away their identity—we protect it, and give them the systems, expertise, and support to survive and remain competitive.”
“The government allowed us to become the approved provider, so smaller not-for-profits can effectively outsource that role to us,” Becsi explained. “They keep their charitable status and identity, and their staff retain tax benefits, but we can also raise private capital to invest in upgrading care, systems, and buildings. That combination is the real advantage.”
This hybrid structure required nearly six years of negotiation with government bodies and regulatory agencies. Today, Apollo Care oversees 14 aged care homes across multiple states, each retaining its community foundation while gaining the benefits of shared capability and scale.
Managing Without a Head Office
One of the most notable elements of Apollo Care’s approach is the absence of a central physical headquarters. The organization runs on a fully cloud-based operational model, supported by a remote Performance Office and a suite of proprietary and integrated digital tools that allow clinical, operational, and financial oversight across geographically dispersed sites.
A core component is the Operations Insights Suite (OIS)—a system that draws data directly from financial, staffing, occupancy, and care systems to generate real-time analysis of each site’s operational performance. The system highlights variances, forecasts risks, and recommends specific corrective actions. AI functions are being trained to provide increasingly predictive, automated support.
“We go in with a standard transformation process—from ICT redesign to workforce reorientation,” Becsi explained. “Once alignment is achieved, performance starts to turn.”
This approach has already saved multiple facilities that were at risk of closure, preserving local access to care and maintaining continuity of community employment and support networks.
“The real challenge is managing financial performance when your facility managers are clinically trained,” Becsi noted. “They aren’t accountants. So we built a system that shows them exactly where and how to improve. They don’t need to interpret spreadsheets—we do that for them.”
In this model, data becomes the organizational language. Clinical judgment remains central; technology simply amplifies the capability of local leaders to act strategically rather than reactively.
Why Mergers and Acquisitions Are Now Essential
As deregulation progresses, market consolidation is accelerating. When funding follows the consumer, providers that cannot differentiate on quality, brand, or experience will struggle to maintain occupancy. Once financial distress begins, recovery becomes extremely difficult without external support.
“When sectors deregulate, small operators end up competing with larger ones,” Becsi said. “But what we do differently is preserve local brands. We don’t replace them with Apollo Care. We help them thrive under their own identity.”
This approach has already prevented closure of multiple regional facilities, protecting access to care in communities where alternatives may not exist.
Conclusion: A Scalable Future Built on Local Roots
Apollo Care’s approach offers a path through the challenges of deregulation: strengthen local organizations rather than replace them; combine mission with capital; and support clinical leaders with data-driven decision systems that improve both care quality and operational sustainability.
“We are here to save community aged care,” Becsi said. “Technology enables it. Capital funds it. But the mission is care—dignified, local, sustainable care.”
As Australia enters the next phase of its aged care reform journey, models like Apollo Care’s may prove critical—not only to preserving access to services across diverse communities, but to redefining what high-quality aged care looks like in a system where the consumer truly comes first.
Coming Up Next
In the coming weeks, we will continue to publish insights from ACIF 2025 speakers and international buyers visiting Cares Expo Taipei 2025, sharing their analyses and perspectives on how different countries are responding to the evolving trends in the aging society and care industry.
Through their experiences, we aim to offer readers a broader perspective on how global collaboration and innovation are shaping the next decade of the healthcare industry.
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