How Much Do Home Health Care Agencies Charge?
If you or one of your family members is aging in place, and need assistance with basic tasks around the house, like cleaning, personal care, bathing, and other such necessities, including basic medical needs, you might be in need of a home health aide.
In-home nursing care and home health aides are very valuable. These full-time caregivers can take care of your necessities and allow you or a loved one to live a more comfortable, content life. Whether you are a family caregiver who is looking to take a break, or an aging senior who is considering hiring help in the near-future, it’s important to know what you can expect from in-home nursing care.
If you’re curious about in-home care costs, basics about home care cost per hour, or other in home nursing care costs, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s take a look at the expenses associated with home health aides, and how much you can expect to spend when hiring caregivers..
What is home health aide?
In most cases, if you or a loved one wish to age in place, home health aid is what you’re going to want. Home health aid agencies will be able to provide you with a trained and experienced home health aide.
It is important to point out that home health aides are, with few exceptions, not trained medical professionals. They are not nurses, and typically will not be able to perform any medical tasks beyond basic things like reminding your loved one to take medication and other such things. Due to this, you may need to hire a specialist, part-time nurse to expand your home health aide’s services. Why not simply hire a nurse full time? Because it is so much more expensive.
The home health aides mostly offer the same services that a family caregiver would, and are not highly skilled, and their rates are typically lower. In most states, home health aides will charge rates of $20-$30 per hour.
By comparison, a highly-skilled nurse may cost $40-$80 per hour – and their services are typically not required all the time. Selecting a home health aide lets you or a loved one to get proper care, minus the high cost of a full-time nurse. The cost of home health aide is significantly lower.
It should be noted that it is not necessarily good to hire the most inexpensive care provider available to you. They might not have the proper license or home health care provider insurance – and you or your loved one can get sub-par treatment. You should do your research before hiring any particular agency, to make sure that you’re working in partnership with a reputable company.
Now that we have already started discussing money, let’s take a look at the numbers behind at-home care – and how much could you expect a home health care agency to charge.
How Much Does Home Health Care Cost?
The cost of home health care will vary depending, depending on the services that you need. For example, hiring a home health aide will be much more inexpensive, when compared with hiring a registered nurse or another medical professional.
Due to this, the cost of home healthcare can be quite inconsistent – based on your needs, the services that you will need, and several other factors. Some of these factors include:
- The type of services you need – To put things plainly, one of the biggest factors that impact the cost of home health care is the number of different services you require, as this also affects how much work must be done by a nurse or a home health aide.
- The hours your home health aide works – The more hours worked, the more you will pay. While some folks do have full-time home health aides, it’s often more accessible and affordable to only hire a part-time aid and enhance their services with family caregiving.
- Extent of disabilities – Individuals who are severely handicapped and disabled are going to need special services. They might even need to hire a qualified nurse, rather than a home health aide, in order to guarantee their safety and proper administration of medication.
- State of residence – Depending on the cost of living in your state, and the rates charged by local home health services, you could pay more or less. This all depends on market factors and demand for home health aides.
These are just a few of the factors that might influence how much you pay for at-home care for a loved one, or for yourself. Next, let’s take a look at the basics of home health aide and home health aides.
How much do home health care agencies charge?
Home care cost per hour
Curious about the hourly rate for elderly care? Let’s look at the basics of what you can anticipate the cost of in-home care per hour now, and the different factors that affect home health care cost per hour.
As we noted above, the average wages of a home health aide worker are about $19 per hour. If you are working with a larger home health aide company, you may expect to pay a bit more, due to additional fees.
However, sometimes the cost of hiring a home health aide is closer to $30 per hour, especially if you need full-time service, or you or your loved one has more complicated needs due to a handicap or disability.
Health care cost per month
The average cost of in-home caregivers for monthly services may vary depending on the agency, how much time the health aide spends giving care, and a number of additional factors.
As an example, you might pay about $1680 per month for 20 hours of care per week, at $20 per hour.
This may seem steep but when compared to the average monthly cost of an assisted living facility which ca can easily be up to $4,000-$6,000 per month, using the services of a home health care aide tends to be the better choice for your budget.
Average healthcare cost per year
The total annual healthcare cost of an at home health aide, applying the above cost estimates, will be about $21,480, for 20 hours of care per week.
Again, this may seem steep, but in comparison, living in an assisted living facility generally costs around $70,000. If you or your loved one is in good health, and only needs minor assistance with tasks around the house, selecting an at-home caregiver is often the most economical choice – and offers substantial cost savings. And, in some cases, aging at home can mean a higher quality of life for your loved ones, as they do not have to endure the jarring transition of moving to a home care facility.
Long-term health care costs
“Long term health care” usually refers to caring for basic personal necessities, for example bathing and the necessities of daily living. It is also generally not covered by Medicare.
If you require only long-term health care services, you will likely pay out of pocket. The cost of long-term care is generally around the same as the cost of a home health aide, so you’ll pay about $20 or more per hour, depending on your location.
24-hour home health care cost
How much is in home care cost if you or a loved one needs 24-hour assistance? Quite a lot. If we take into account the average wage of a home health aide to be $21 per hour, the cost of 24-hour care – 3 aides working 8-hour shifts – would exceed $180,000 per year.
If you or a loved one needs 24-hour care, it is usually much more cost effective to live at a skilled nursing facility, which normally costs somewhere around $80,000 per year. While aging and living at home is a great thing, it is not suitable for those who need 24/7, around-the-clock care.