Not medical advice
This page helps families compare cost and logistics. It is not medical advice and does not diagnose, treat, or recommend clinical care. Talk with a clinician about health decisions.
Cornerstone guide · ElderCareCosts Research
In-Home Care Guide: Help at Home for Seniors
Non-medical in-home care helps with ADLs, meals, and companionship; home health is skilled and usually doctor-ordered. Not medical advice. We stick to logistics and how to compare options. Where a number or state rule is missing, we say so instead of guessing.
Who this guide is for
You are probably comparing options for a parent (or yourself) and need a clear starting map. Not a sales pitch.
What to know about homemaker
Non-medical in-home care helps with ADLs, meals, and companionship; home health is skilled and usually doctor-ordered.
What to know about home health aide
Medicare can cover intermittent skilled home health when criteria are met. Not round-the-clock custodial care.
What in-home care costs
Across the fifty states where we publish a 2025 figure, the median cost of non-medical in-home care is $6,768 a month at the forty-four hour week the surveys treat as standard. That works out to about $35.50 an hour, with the middle half of states running from roughly $32.63 to $40.00 on the same basis.
Most families do not start at forty-four hours. At twenty hours a week, a common opening schedule, the same rate is about $3,076 a month. Hours are the lever that moves this number more than anything else, which is why two households in the same city can pay very different amounts.
One distinction worth keeping hold of: this is the rate an agency bills, not the wage the caregiver takes home. The gap covers payroll taxes, insurance, supervision, cover when someone calls in sick, and overhead. Hiring privately can lower the hourly rate, and it moves those responsibilities to you.
What to know about agency vs private hire
Ask agencies about caregiver screening, backups, and how overtime/holiday rates work.
Questions to ask next
Which setting matches daily support needs and budget. And what would a clinician say about health risks you cannot evaluate from a webpage?
What can you pay privately for 6–12 months, and which public programs might apply later?
Which official .gov page confirms the rule you just read on a blog?
Sources and gaps
Every hard claim here should map to one of the sources listed below. If we lack a verified figure, we say so instead of inventing one.
What we will not claim
Prepared by ElderCareCosts Research from structured facts and official sources.
This page is informational only. Not medical advice, not legal advice, and not expert-reviewed. We do not use individual bylines or Person author schema.
Sources
- Medicare.gov. Home health services. Medicare home health coverage overview
- ACL.gov. Community living / aging services context
- ElderCareCosts methodology. How the published cost medians are derived, which survey vintage they come from, and what the model does not cover.
Related
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