The Home Care Guide: Home Care Aide Cost

Find out about pay rates for home health care aides

Ronnie Friedland

Care.com Editor

Inside The Home Care Guide...

Once you have clarified your in-home care needs, you'll then be able to identify providers and learn what the costs would be for each provider. Of course, having family, friends or volunteers provide the service is less expensive than hiring an agency or individual care provider. Often, a combination of family members and hired caregivers is used which allows all caregivers to take the breaks they need to provide high quality ongoing care.

The cost of hiring a home care aide varies widely by:

Geographical location

Job requirements, type of care provided

Level of skill and experience

Independant agent or agency staffed aide worker

According to MetLife in 2007:

the average hourly cost of a home care aide worker was $19 per hour

in some states the surveyed rate was as high as $30 per hour and as low as $9 per hour

Under certain strictly defined conditions your health insurance company will cover the cost of home care. You will have to check with your health insurance company or with the home care agency to assess the particulars of your case.

Ronnie Friedland is an editor at Care.com. Previously she edited InterfaithFamily.com and JewishFamily.com. She has co-edited three books on parenting and interfaith family life.