How do I find and choose a residential aged care home?

Few decisions arrive with less warning, or more emotion, than moving a parent or partner into residential aged care. It often follows a crisis — a fall, a hospital wanting to discharge them, a carer who simply can't cope any longer — and suddenly a family is navigating an unfamiliar system, fast, with a lot of money attached. The good news is that beneath the stress there's a clear, ordered process, and following it step by step lets you choose a good home rather than grab the first available bed. Here's how it works. This article is general information only, not personal advice, and because the aged care rules changed under reforms that culminated in a new Aged Care Act from 1 November 2025, confirm the current details as you go.

Step 1: How do you get an assessment?

To access government-subsidised residential aged care, the person needs an official aged care assessment first — you generally can't just pick a home and move in. This is now handled through a single assessment system, arranged through My Aged Care, that consolidated the separate assessment arrangements that used to exist (My Aged Care, https://www.myagedcare.gov.au/assessment). So the first call is to My Aged Care, by phone or through its website, to register and arrange the assessment. If the person is in hospital, the hospital's social worker can often help start this off.

Step 2: How do you find the homes?

Once the assessment is under way, use the "Find a provider" tool on the My Aged Care website to search for residential homes by location. For each home it shows the details, the star rating, and the accommodation prices, which lets you build a shortlist without leaving the kitchen table (My Aged Care, https://www.myagedcare.gov.au/find-a-provider).

Step 3: How do you compare on quality — the star ratings?

To help families compare, the Australian Government gives every residential aged care home an Overall Star Rating between 1 and 5 stars, built from four sub-categories: Residents' Experience (drawn from an annual face-to-face survey of at least 20% of residents at each home), Compliance (from 1 November 2025 assessed against the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards and the regulator's decisions), Staffing (whether the home meets its care-minute targets, counting total care minutes and registered-nurse minutes), and Quality Measures (performance across five important areas of care) (Department of Health, https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/star-ratings-for-residential-aged-care/how-star-ratings-works). It's a genuinely useful way to filter and compare homes on an even footing. But treat it as a guide, not gospel: a rating is a starting point, and it can't capture the feel of a place or how the staff treat the people in their care. That you have to see for yourself.

Step 4: Should you visit, and trust what you see?

So visit your shortlisted homes in person — more than once if you can, and at different times of day. Notice the cleanliness and the atmosphere, and above all how the staff interact with residents: are they warm, unhurried, respectful? Look at the food and the activities, and ask the questions that matter — staffing ratios and turnover, how they handle medical needs and dementia, the room types, visiting arrangements, and the fees and any extra-service charges. A home can look good online and feel wrong in person, or the reverse — your own impressions, alongside the star rating, are what should decide it.

Step 5: What about the money — and where does advice pay off?

Residential aged care generally has three cost components, though the exact rules and amounts changed under the new Aged Care Act from 1 November 2025 and differ for people entering care before and after that date, so confirm the current position for the person's situation. The first is a basic daily fee that everyone pays, set as a percentage of the single Age Pension — $66.80 a day as at 20 March 2026 (Services Australia, https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/aged-care-means-assessment). The second is a means-tested care fee, based on an assessment of the person's income and assets and subject to annual and lifetime caps. And the third is an accommodation payment, which you can pay as a refundable lump sum (a RAD), as a daily payment (a DAP), or as a combination of the two.

This is the part where getting help genuinely pays for itself. Arrange a financial assessment through Services Australia to work out the means-tested fee, and seriously consider personal advice, because the big choices here — RAD versus DAP, and whether to keep or sell the family home — ripple straight into both the aged-care fees and the Age Pension (Services Australia, https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/aged-care-means-assessment). Our separate articles on the accommodation-payment decision, the means-tested care fee, and funding the RAD go through the detail; the key point is not to lock in how you'll pay until you've had those numbers looked at.

Step 6: How do you apply and secure a place?

You can apply to several homes at once, which is wise given many have waitlists. Homes assess the applications they receive and offer places as they come up. When an offer comes, read the agreement carefully — the fees, any additional or "extra service" charges, and the terms — before anyone signs.

What do the worked examples show?

These show the process in the two ways it usually arrives — in a crisis, and planned ahead. They are illustrative only, not personal or placement advice.

Consider the family of Norma, 84, who has had a fall and whose hospital wants to discharge her but she can no longer manage at home. On these facts the ordered process is what keeps a rushed decision from becoming a poor one: they ask the hospital social worker to start the My Aged Care assessment, use the Find a provider tool to shortlist homes by location and star rating, visit the shortlist in person to judge the staff and the feel, and — before committing to how they'll pay — arrange a Services Australia financial assessment and get advice on the RAD-versus-DAP and keep-or-sell-the-home questions (Services Australia, https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/aged-care-means-assessment). On these facts it is generally rational for a family in Norma's position to apply to several homes at once given waitlists, and to read any agreement carefully before signing.

Now consider Robert, 79, planning ahead for his wife Helen, who has dementia but is still at home, so there's no immediate crisis. On these facts the luxury of time changes the approach: he can compare homes not just on the overall star rating but on the Staffing and Quality Measures sub-scores and how each home handles dementia, visit at different times of day, and use a short respite stay as a low-commitment trial that lets Helen and the family get a real feel for a place (My Aged Care, https://www.myagedcare.gov.au/find-a-provider). On these facts it is generally rational for someone in Robert's position to involve Helen in the choice as much as she is able and to get the financial assessment and advice done early, so that when a place is needed the decision is already well prepared.

What is the human side?

Two last things matter as much as any of the above. Involve the person themselves as much as they're able — it's their home and their life. And if you possibly can, don't let a crisis force a rushed decision: a short respite stay in a home can be a low-commitment trial that buys you time to choose well and gives everyone a feel for the place. You don't have to do it alone, either — My Aged Care, an aged care placement service, and a financial adviser for the money side can each take a real weight off. It's one of the hardest decisions a family makes, but taken step by step, with the right help, it's one you can get right.

Sources

• My Aged Care — Find a provider
• Department of Health — How Star Ratings works
• My Aged Care — Assessment
• Services Australia — Aged care means (income and assets) assessment