Aged care providers are navigating one of the most significant periods of reform the sector has experienced. New funding arrangements, changing participant expectations, workforce pressures, increased regulatory obligations and tighter margins are challenging traditional ways of operating.

Yet one of the greatest risks to sustainability may be much closer to home: operations and finance not understanding each other.

A financially sound business model cannot be developed by the finance team alone, just as operational decisions cannot be made without understanding their financial consequences. Decisions about service delivery, workforce models, utilisation, pricing, claiming, care management and participant contributions all have a direct impact on organisational sustainability.

Drawing on the extensive experience of the Lorraine Poulos & Associates team working with providers across the aged care sector, this practical presentation will explore what we are seeing on the ground: what is working, where providers are struggling and why some established business models are no longer delivering the results they once did.

The session will examine the importance of understanding your actual business model, not simply your budget. It will explore the relationship between service delivery and financial performance and demonstrate why operational and finance teams need a common understanding of the drivers that determine whether a service is viable.

Importantly, this will not be a theoretical discussion. Using practical examples and insights from LPA’s work across the sector, we will explore how providers can bring finance and operations together to ask better questions, challenge assumptions and make more informed decisions.

The message is simple: in this period of reform, collaboration between finance and operations is no longer desirable. It is essential to sustainability.