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In-Home Care vs. Assisted Living

New York's $35/hour CareScout median for in-home care, and the crossover point where assisted living becomes the cheaper option.

HomeComparisonsIn-Home Care vs. Assisted Living
Short answer

CareScout's 2025 survey puts New York's non-medical caregiver median at $35/hour. At 44 hours a week that is roughly $6,673/month -- close to, but still under, the $7,110/month New York assisted living median. Past roughly 50 hours a week, in-home care in New York typically costs more than a licensed assisted living community.

The crossover math

Hours/weekApprox. monthly cost at $35/hr
10$1,517
20$3,033
40$6,067
44 (full-time)$6,673
60$9,100
168 (round-the-clock)$25,480

Once a parent needs more than roughly 45-50 hours of paid help a week, run the math directly against New York's $7,110/month assisted living median before assuming home is the cheaper option -- it frequently is not, once overnight or round-the-clock coverage is needed.

When home usually wins

Below about 20-25 hours a week, or when a spouse or family member covers unpaid hours, staying home is usually the lower-cost path, and it avoids a move entirely.

Questions families ask

My father was just diagnosed with dementia - what should we be planning for on Long Island?

A new dementia diagnosis typically means starting to think about progressively higher levels of support: from in-home caregiving, to a Special Needs Assisted Living Residence (SNALR)-certified memory care community, to eventually possibly a nursing home. The Nassau (516-227-8900) or Suffolk (631-853-8200) County Office for the Aging can connect families to local resources and benefits counseling as needs evolve, and it's worth confirming any Long Island community marketing memory care actually holds SNALR certification via NYS Health Profiles.

I'm exhausted from caring for my spouse or parent - what support exists for caregivers on Long Island?

Both the Nassau County Office for the Aging (516-227-8900) and Suffolk County Office for the Aging (631-853-8200) serve as local NY Connects access points and can help connect exhausted family caregivers to respite options, including adult day health care, at a New York State median of $144 per day, and in-home caregiver support, at a state median of $35 per hour, which can relieve some of the daily burden without requiring a full residential placement.

We're running out of money to pay privately for my parent's care - what are our options?

Once private funds are running low, the relevant path for most Nassau and Suffolk families is long-term-care Medicaid, a separate, asset-tested eligibility pathway from general ACA Medicaid, which can cover nursing home care, Managed Long Term Care (MLTC)-coordinated home care, the Assisted Living Program (ALP), or NHTD waiver services, depending on the level of need. The county Office for the Aging (Nassau: 516-227-8900; Suffolk: 631-853-8200) is a starting point for understanding which of these pathways may apply.

How do we know it's actually time to move my parent out of their home?

There's no single trigger, but common signals include a recent fall or hospitalization, a new or worsening dementia diagnosis, the primary family caregiver reaching burnout, or private funds running low relative to ongoing care costs, any of which typically prompts a first call to the Nassau (516-227-8900) or Suffolk (631-853-8200) County Office for the Aging to understand available options before deciding.

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