Costs and planning
Know what you may need to pay.
A monthly rate rarely tells the whole story. Understand the care, housing, and additional charges before choosing an arrangement.
Break down the bill
Ask for housing, meals, personal assistance, medications, equipment, transportation, and additional staffing to be listed separately.
Ask what can change
Check assessment fees, deposits, rate increases, minimum hours, holiday rates, and charges when care needs increase.
Match each expense to a payer
Verify which services a benefit covers, which providers participate, and what remains your responsibility. Ask for a written estimate.
PRICES · ROOM TYPES · PAID CARE · SOURCES
Compare care prices and what they include
US dollars · National and Texas survey benchmarks: 2025 · Provider and source pages accessed October 27, 2026
Compare the location, room, staffing and services behind each price. Survey medians, provider asking prices and caregiver wages measure different things. A published rate does not confirm availability or your final bill.
National survey benchmarks
| Service or room | Median charge | Basis and limits |
|---|---|---|
| Assisted living (ALF) | $6,200per month | Private one-bedroom unit. Ask which care services and fees the written rate includes. |
| Non-medical care at home | $35per hour | Personal assistance and homemaker services; not skilled nursing. Holiday rates are excluded from the survey. |
| Private-duty nursing at home | $90per hour | Privately purchased nursing. This is not the patient charge for Medicare-covered home health. |
| Adult day health care | $95per day | Reported daily rate; not an overnight respite rate. Confirm transportation and meal charges. |
| Nursing home: semi-private room | $315per day | Shared room. Ask for the room rate, included services and additional charges separately.$9,450 for 30 days; $114,975 for 365 days, calculated at this rate. |
| Nursing home: private room | $355per day | Single-occupancy room. This is a survey price, not a Medicare copayment.$10,650 for 30 days; $129,575 for 365 days, calculated at this rate. |
The assisted living figure is for a private one-bedroom. This survey does not establish separate memory-care or shared-room assisted-living national medians. Definitions and sampling [2].
State pricing: Texas
These are 2025 statewide survey medians. Compare them with the national figures above and the actual local quote.
| Service | Median charge |
|---|---|
| Assisted living, private one-bedroom | $5,666 / month |
| Non-medical paid caregiver through an agency | $30 / hour |
| Private-duty nurse (LPN or RN) | $90 / hour |
| Adult day health care | $90 / day |
| Nursing home, semi-private room | $185 / day |
| Nursing home, private room | $250 / day |
Published provider examples: rooms and housing
These are specific local examples, not national averages, recommendations, or offers from Care and Living Guide. Effective dates are not supplied for the room examples; Fellowship Square’s page shows an October 26, 2026 update. Confirm current rates and availability in a written quote.
| Setting, room and location | Published charge | Included care and extra fees |
|---|---|---|
| Assisted living: Semi-private roomBellaire Residential Assisted Living & Memory Care · Denton, Texas | $6,750per monthProvider rate source ↗ | All care levels included; incontinence supplies add $250/month. |
| Assisted living: Semi-private room with bathBellaire Residential Assisted Living & Memory Care · Denton, Texas | $7,250per monthProvider rate source ↗ | All care levels included; incontinence supplies add $250/month. |
| Assisted living: Private roomBellaire Residential Assisted Living & Memory Care · Denton, Texas | $7,995per monthProvider rate source ↗ | All care levels included; incontinence supplies add $250/month. |
| Assisted living: Private room with bathBellaire Residential Assisted Living & Memory Care · Denton, Texas | $8,495per monthProvider rate source ↗ | All care levels included; incontinence supplies add $250/month. |
| Memory care: Semi-private roomBellaire Residential Assisted Living & Memory Care · Denton, Texas | $7,250per monthProvider rate source ↗ | All care levels and incontinence supplies included. |
| Memory care: Semi-private room with bathBellaire Residential Assisted Living & Memory Care · Denton, Texas | $7,750per monthProvider rate source ↗ | All care levels and incontinence supplies included. |
| Memory care: Private room with bathBellaire Residential Assisted Living & Memory Care · Denton, Texas | $8,995per monthProvider rate source ↗ | All care levels and incontinence supplies included. |
| Memory care: Premium private room with bathBellaire Residential Assisted Living & Memory Care · Denton, Texas | $9,495per monthProvider rate source ↗ | All care levels and incontinence supplies included. |
| Board and care: Shared room — starting priceGenesis Manor I (six-resident board-and-care home) · Rancho Cucamonga, California | $4,750per monthProvider rate source ↗ | Plus $1,000 admission fee; assessment sets final rate. Meals, caregiving and laundry included; supplies and outside clinical care extra. Night response on call, not awake staffing. |
| Board and care: Private room — starting priceGenesis Manor I (six-resident board-and-care home) · Rancho Cucamonga, California | $5,250per monthProvider rate source ↗ | Plus $1,000 admission fee; assessment sets final rate. Meals, caregiving and laundry included; supplies and outside clinical care extra. Night response on call, not awake staffing. |
| Independent living apartment: 644 sq ft, one-bedroom/one-bath — starting rentFellowship Square Phoenix · Phoenix, Arizona | $2,500per monthProvider rate source ↗ | 25 meals/month, utilities, scheduled transport and twice-monthly housekeeping. $1,750 community fee + $1,450 refundable security deposit; second occupant $595/month. Telephone extra. Separate personal care not priced here. |
At Bellaire, pet or motorized-wheelchair deposits can be extra. At Genesis Manor I, the shared-room label is the provider’s wording; confirm occupancy, bathroom access and the assessed total. Home details.
Agency care versus privately hired caregivers
The national agency survey benchmark is $35/hour for non-medical care and $90/hour for private-duty nursing by an LPN or RN. A paid personal caregiver is not the same service as a licensed nurse. CareScout service definitions [2].
| City | Posted starting rate |
|---|---|
| Houston, TX | $19.20 / hour |
| San Antonio, TX | $19.53 / hour |
| Chicago, IL | $22.89 / hour |
| Seattle, WA | $29.14 / hour |
Posted asking rates are not accepted contracts, total employer costs, agency prices, or a current local quote. Employee wages are another measure. Direct hiring may create household-employer tax and payroll responsibilities; check IRS Publication 926 [6] and applicable local requirements.
| Weekly paid care | Weekly cost | Average monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| 20 hours | $700 | $3,033 |
| 40 hours | $1,400 | $6,067 |
| 44 hours | $1,540 | $6,673 |
| 56 hours | $1,960 | $8,493 |
| 84 hours | $2,940 | $12,740 |
| 168 hours (continuous coverage illustration) | $5,880 | $25,480 |
Continuous hourly coverage can require multiple caregivers. These calculations do not price a live-in arrangement or add overtime, holiday premiums, minimum shifts, travel or backup coverage.
Build a paid-caregiver budget
Enter your own quoted rate, or start with the $35/hour US survey benchmark. This is an arithmetic illustration, not a provider quote.
Monthly calculation: hourly charge × weekly hours × 52 ÷ 12 + monthly extras. Assumes the same schedule for 52 weeks. Overtime, payroll obligations, holidays, minimum shifts and backup staffing are not automatically added. A live-in arrangement is not priced as a single 24-hour shift.
Covered home health is different: eligible Medicare-covered home health services cost $0; covered equipment generally has 20% coinsurance after the Part B deductible. Medicare does not cover 24-hour home care or personal care alone. Medicare home health costs [3].
Hospice and palliative-care charges
For qualifying Medicare-covered hospice, covered care costs $0; outpatient symptom-control prescriptions can have copayments up to $5 each, and arranged inpatient respite can have 5% coinsurance. Ordinary facility room and board is not included; hospice-arranged qualifying inpatient or respite stays have different rules. Medicare hospice cost rules [7].
A separate palliative-care consultation does not have one national flat price. Request the visit charge and your plan’s deductible, copayment or coinsurance, then check any separate facility bill. Paid caregivers and housing remain separate budget items.
Independent living: compare rent, meals, utilities, parking, second-person charges and any entry fee separately. The assisted living benchmark is not an independent-living rent estimate. Obtain the community’s dated rate sheet; add separately purchased care to the housing budget.
Respite pricing: the $95/day national benchmark describes adult day health, not an overnight stay. Ask for the hourly, daily or overnight respite rate, minimum stay, assessment fee and transportation charge. A Medicare respite coinsurance percentage is not a private-pay nightly rate.
Sources, dates and how to compare quotes- [1] CareScout 2025 data tables and location tool. Survey collected July–November 2025; tables dated March 2, 2026.
- [2] Survey methodology. Agency home-care sample; holidays excluded. Adult day sample includes private-pay and community-subsidized rates, excluding government-subsidized rates.
- [3] Medicare home health services.
- [4] CareScout ranked state tables, March 6, 2026; Texas statewide figures.
- [5] Care.com’s own posted starting-rate data, February 5, 2026; asking prices, not an independent national agency survey.
- [6] IRS household employer guide.
- [7] Medicare hospice services.
- Provider examples link directly to published rate pages; the dated page update is not a guaranteed rate effective date. No inflation estimate added to 2025 survey results.
For each quote, record its date, location, private/shared occupancy, bathroom access, care assessment, night staffing, included services, supplies, deposits, minimum hours/stays and rate-change terms. Clinical services, outside providers and personal spending may be billed separately. Confirm coverage with the payer.