Home Care for Both Parents in the Same House in Massachusetts

One aide can often help both parents in the same visit. What decides the cost is how many hours the two care plans need together, and above all whether both parents need hands on help at the same moment. That last point is what turns a one aide household into a two aide household.

One aide, one visit. Whether that covers two parents depends on when each one needs help.

Can one aide take care of both of my parents?

Usually yes, as long as the two of them need help at different points in the visit. The common pattern is one parent needing help with a shower and getting dressed while the other needs a meal, the laundry started and company at the table. One aide, one visit, both covered. It stops working the moment both parents need the aide's hands at the same second, and that is almost always a transfer.

When do two parents need two aides?

When any of these is true:

• Both need physical help getting out of bed or on and off the toilet at the same time of day.
• One of them already needs a two person transfer, which uses both of the aide's hands by itself.
• Neither can be left alone safely, so the aide cannot step into the other room.
• Their schedules sit at opposite ends of the day, one needing early morning help and the other needing evening help, which is two visits rather than two aides.

The last one is worth separating out, because families often assume they need two people when what they actually need is two visits.

How much does home care for both parents cost?

Home health aide care is $45 an hour, one to eight hours a day, with no minimum contract, no assessment fee and no four hour minimum per visit. On a 30 day month:

• 3 hours twice weekly, about $1,170
• 2 hours a day, about $2,730
• 3 hours a day, about $4,095
• 4 hours a day, about $5,460
• 6 hours a day, about $8,200
• 8 hours a day, about $10,900
• Overnight, $540 for a twelve hour night, about $16,200 a month if you need every night
• Around the clock, $1,080 a day, about $32,800 a month

Those figures are hours of an aide's time. How a two parent household gets quoted depends on the two care plans side by side, so call 781 957 8076 with what each parent actually needs and we will price the real schedule rather than an average. The hourly math behind these numbers is on home care cost in Massachusetts per hour and per month.

Do both parents have to sign up for the same number of hours?

No. There is one schedule for the house, built around when help is actually needed. If your father needs an hour in the morning and your mother needs three in the afternoon, that is a four hour day, and the hours are what you pay for. There is no minimum contract to sign and no requirement to match them up. Many agencies will not schedule a visit shorter than four hours or a week shorter than twenty, which forces families to buy hours nobody needs. We publish our rate and our minimums, and you can read how the industry handles this on home care agency minimum hours in Massachusetts.

What can one aide do for two people in a single visit?

• Bathing, dressing, grooming and toileting assistance
• Help getting up and moving safely around the house
• Meals for both, dishes, laundry and light housekeeping
• Reminders, company and a set of eyes on both of them
• Getting ready for appointments and going along to them

What an aide does not do, for either parent. Our aides are trained, background checked and insured, and they are not nurses. They do not administer medication, including insulin, do not change dressings and do not make clinical judgments. They can be present while a parent takes their own medication, help if something goes wrong and call for help. Skilled nursing is a separate service, priced separately.

Meals, laundry and housekeeping scale up with two people in the house even when personal care does not.

What should we try before paying out of pocket?

Call Elder Services, the aging services access point for your parents' town, and ask about the state home care program, which is based on income and may cover some hours. If either parent has MassHealth, ask about the personal care attendant program, where the member hires and manages their own attendant. If either is a wartime veteran or the surviving spouse of one, ask about VA Aid and Attendance. A mixed arrangement is common and perfectly workable: one parent on a covered program, the other on private hours. Start with the free route and buy only the gap.

How do we know the aide came, and that both parents got help?

Visits are logged in MyCase, our own coordination platform, so a missed shift is visible to us and to you the same day rather than discovered a week later. In a two parent household that matters more than usual, because the schedule is the only thing keeping two sets of needs from colliding. If you are weighing agencies, getting a caregiver for a few hours a day walks through what a short visit actually covers.

Where does Care Remedy work?

Offices in Woburn, Springfield and Brockton. Call 781 957 8076 or email info@careremedyinc.com and tell us what each parent needs and when.

This page is general information, not legal, tax or benefits advice. Eligibility rules for state and veterans programs change and depend on your own circumstances, so confirm them with the agency, or with your own attorney or accountant, before you rely on them.