Home Care Allentown PA: $34 an Hour, and 4 Ways Not to Pay It

Home care Allentown PA families arrange for a parent costs $34 an hour at the 2025 Pennsylvania median, about $6,483 a month at 44 hours a week. That is the rate. For most Lehigh Valley families, it is not the bill. Four programs, Medicaid’s Community HealthChoices, Lehigh County’s OPTIONS Program, two VA benefits and long-term care insurance, pay some or all of those hours in your place, and each starts with one phone call. This guide covers what non-medical home care includes under Pennsylvania regulation, what it costs by hours per week, who pays, what a licensed agency must hand you in writing, and how to start this week.

What home care in Allentown includes, and what it does not

In Pennsylvania, “home care” has a legal meaning. Home care agencies are licensed by the Department of Health and “provide non-skilled services to individuals in their homes”: personal care, help with instrumental activities of daily living, companionship, respite and specialized care (PA Department of Health). The caregiver is a direct care worker, not a nurse.

The regulation lists what a personal care worker must be trained to do: “bathing, shaving, grooming and dressing,” “hair, skin and mouth care,” “assistance with ambulation and transferring,” “meal preparation and feeding,” “toileting” and “assistance with self-administered medications” (28 Pa. Code § 611.55). Our guide to what a personal care aide does and does not do walks through a typical visit.

	Personal care	Companion care	Home health
What it is	Bathing, dressing, transfers, toileting, meals, medication reminders	Company, light housekeeping, errands, appointments	Skilled nursing, therapy, wound care, injections
Who provides it	Direct care worker, licensed home care agency	Direct care worker, licensed home care agency	Nurses and therapists, Medicare-certified home health agency
Who usually pays	Private, Medicaid CHC, OPTIONS, VA, LTC insurance	Private, OPTIONS, VA, LTC insurance	Medicare, for a homebound patient, on a doctor’s order
Rate	$34 an hour, PA median 2025	Often the same as personal care	Per visit, not per hour

The third column is the one that matters for your wallet. Medicare’s home health benefit pays for part-time skilled care ordered by a doctor; it does not pay for “custodial or personal care” when that is the only care a person needs (Medicare.gov). If your parent needs help getting up, washed and fed rather than a nurse, Medicare is not the payer. The four programs below are.

What home care Allentown PA families pay in 2025

The most reliable public benchmark is the Cost of Care Survey, run by Genworth since 2004 and now published by CareScout from more than 25,000 provider rates collected between July and November 2025 (CareScout 2025 survey). Its Pennsylvania median for a non-medical caregiver is $34 an hour, $213 a day and $6,483 a month at 44 hours a week; the national median is $35 (state data tables, PDF). There is no separate Allentown figure, so treat $34 as the starting point and ask each agency for its rate in writing, with weekend and holiday differentials.

Hours a week	Typical schedule	Monthly cost at $34/hour
10	Five 2-hour morning visits	About $1,473
20	Four hours on weekdays: morning routine and lunch	About $2,947
30	Six hours on weekdays	About $4,420
44	Survey basis: a full workweek plus weekend hours	$6,483
84	12 hours a day, 7 days	About $12,376
168	24-hour shift care, awake overnight	About $24,752

Monthly figures multiply weekly hours by 52 and divide by 12. Live-in care is priced by the day and usually costs less than the 168-hour row; our guide to 24-hour home care in Allentown explains both models.

Two comparisons from the same survey: a Pennsylvania assisted living community runs $6,480 a month, almost exactly the 44-hour figure, and a semi-private nursing home room $11,954. At 20 to 30 hours a week, the home care Allentown PA families arrange is the cheapest option by a wide margin; at 24 hours a day it is the most expensive, which is why those families share shifts, use live-in care or apply for the programs below. There are also nine ways to lower the cost of home care in Allentown before any program is involved.

4 ways not to pay the $34 yourself

Program	Who qualifies	What it pays	First call
Medicaid: Community HealthChoices (CHC)	21 or older; both Medicare and Medicaid, or eligible for Medicaid long-term services; income and asset limits	Personal assistance hours through an agency or a caregiver the family chooses, including a relative	Independent Enrollment Broker, 1-877-550-4227
OPTIONS Program, Lehigh County	60 or older with unmet daily needs; no income requirement, sliding co-payment	Personal care, home support, meals, adult day services, limited by funding	610-782-3200
VA Aid and Attendance; Homemaker/Home Health Aide care	Veteran or surviving spouse on a VA pension needing help with daily activities; or veteran enrolled in VA health care with a clinical need	Monthly cash added to the pension; or aide hours through a VA-contracted agency, possible copay	VA pension office; the veteran’s VA social worker
Long-term care insurance	Policyholder needing help with 2 of 6 activities of daily living, or with cognitive impairment	The daily benefit after the elimination period	The insurer, before the first shift

1. Medicaid: Community HealthChoices

CHC is Pennsylvania’s Medicaid managed care program for adults “21 or older” who “have both Medicare and Medicaid, or receive long-term supports through Medicaid because you need help with everyday personal tasks” (PA Department of Human Services). It pays the agency directly, or pays a caregiver the family chooses; see how to get paid to care for a family member through CHC.

Enrollment starts with the Independent Enrollment Broker at 1-877-550-4227 (CHC contact information), and the IEB says “the process can take as long as 90 days, from start to finish” (PA IEB, PDF). Families who need care during those 90 days pay privately or lean on OPTIONS. Our CHC waiver guide for the Lehigh Valley covers the application step by step.

2. OPTIONS through Lehigh County Aging and Adult Services

The program most families have never heard of, and the only one here with no income test. OPTIONS serves Pennsylvania residents “at least 60 years of age” with “unmet needs that impact daily functioning”; “there are no income requirements,” only “a sliding co-payment scale” (PA Department of Aging). In Lehigh County, the Office of Aging and Adult Services answers at 610-782-3200 (Lehigh County). Hours are limited by county funding, so OPTIONS rarely replaces a full private schedule, but it can cover the gap while a CHC application is pending.

3. VA benefits: two separate doors

Aid and Attendance is added to a VA pension when the veteran or surviving spouse needs “another person to help you perform daily activities, like bathing, feeding, and dressing,” is largely confined to bed, is in a nursing home, or has severely limited eyesight; apply with VA Form 21-2680 (VA.gov). It is cash, spendable on any caregiver.

Homemaker and Home Health Aide care is a VA health care service: “all enrolled Veterans are eligible” if they meet the clinical criteria, the aides “work for an organization that has a contract with VA,” and a copay “may be charged” depending on service-connected disability status (VA.gov). Ask the veteran’s VA social worker. Lehigh County has 16,518 veterans, 3,650 in Allentown (Census, 2020-2024), and many families know only one door. Our guide to VA home care benefits in Pennsylvania covers both.

4. Long-term care insurance

A policy almost certainly pays for care at home, not only in a facility. Benefits start when the insured needs help “with two or more of six ADLs” or has a cognitive impairment, confirmed by an assessment the insurer arranges (ACL). The elimination period, typically 30 to 90 days, is a deductible measured in time, so the clock starts only when care starts. Call the insurer before the first shift and ask for the daily benefit maximum and whether non-medical care from a licensed agency qualifies.

Agency, private caregiver, or a paid family member

	Licensed home care agency	Private caregiver you hire	Family member paid through CHC
Hourly cost	$34 PA median; covers wages, taxes, insurance and a replacement	Often lower; you become the employer and owe payroll taxes above the IRS threshold	Set by the Medicaid plan
Background check, TB screening, training	Required by state regulation before the first assignment	Your job and your cost	Handled by the plan’s fiscal agent
When the caregiver is sick or quits	The agency sends a replacement	You have no one	Depends on the backup plan
Documents you receive	The seven items of § 611.57	Whatever contract you write	The plan’s service plan and time sheets

A private hire can be right for a family with a trusted person already in the picture and the discipline to run a payroll; our comparison of a private duty caregiver versus an agency in Allentown lays out what it really costs. A relative already doing most of the care can often be paid through CHC’s participant-directed option, as long as the parent qualifies for Medicaid.

How to choose a home care agency in Allentown

Every legitimate home care agency Allentown families can hire holds a Pennsylvania Department of Health license. Check it in the Department’s Quality Assurance Facility Directory before you sign. Then hold the agency to three things the regulation requires.

The seven documents. Before services begin, a licensed agency must give you an information packet that is “easily read and understood” with: (1) the services and “the identity of the direct care worker”; (2) the hours; (3) “fees and total costs” by hour or week; (4) who to contact at the Department of Health; (5) the complaint hotline, 1-866-826-3644, and the local Ombudsman’s number; (6) the hiring and competency requirements for workers; and (7) whether the worker is an employee or an independent contractor (28 Pa. Code § 611.57).

Screening. Before a worker is assigned, the agency must obtain a criminal history report (§ 611.52) and tuberculosis screening (§ 611.56).

Competency. Each worker must hold a nursing license, pass the agency’s competency exam or complete an approved training program, with a review “at least once per year” (§ 611.55). Our guide to becoming a home health aide in Pennsylvania describes that training from the worker’s side.

Beyond the law, five questions separate a well-run agency from an average one: Which payers do you accept? Is the care plan in writing after an in-home assessment? How do you match a caregiver by language, schedule and condition? What happens when the caregiver calls out, and who answers after hours? Can I see the first two weeks’ schedule before I sign?

Spanish-speaking home care in the Lehigh Valley

Allentown is 56.3 percent Hispanic, and 48.2 percent of residents age 5 and older speak a language other than English at home; across Lehigh County the Hispanic share is 31.0 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts). For an older adult, the caregiver’s language decides whether “I feel dizzy” and “I already took my pills” get through, and a person with dementia often loses a second language first.

Ask any agency whether it can assign a Spanish-speaking caregiver and whether someone answers the phone in Spanish. Our guide to Spanish-speaking home care in Allentown explains what to ask and what your family’s language-access rights are. This page is also available in Spanish.

Where home care is arranged in the Lehigh Valley and beyond

Allentown has 126,044 residents, 13.5 percent of them 65 or older; Lehigh County has 384,383 residents and a higher share of older adults, 19.8 percent (Census, Vintage 2025). The home care Allentown PA families ask about is for a parent in a center-city rowhouse, a West End twin, a ranch house in Whitehall or Emmaus, and for relatives in Bethlehem and Easton across the county line. Coverage for a specific address and schedule is confirmed at the assessment, not from a map, so ask.

Home Care Concepts serves families from its Allentown office at 2895 Hamilton Blvd, Suite 106, and from a second office at 16 S River St in Wilkes-Barre for Luzerne County, where programs and phone numbers differ; our guide to home care in Wilkes-Barre has those.

Who to call in Lehigh County

Need	Who	Number
OPTIONS assessment, Caregiver Support Program, adult day services, Ombudsman	Lehigh County Aging and Adult Services	610-782-3200
Medicaid CHC application	PA Independent Enrollment Broker	1-877-550-4227
Any long-term care question, statewide	PA Link to Aging and Disability Resources	1-866-286-3636
Complaint about a licensed home care agency	PA Department of Health hotline	1-866-826-3644
VA Aid and Attendance, Homemaker/Home Health Aide	The veteran’s VA pension office or VA social worker	Through VA.gov
A care assessment and a schedule	A licensed home care agency in Allentown	(484) 894-7888

How to start home care in Allentown this week

1. Write down the hard parts of the day. Getting up, bathing, meals, medications, nights. That list, not a guess, sets the hours.
2. Make the free calls first. Lehigh County at 610-782-3200 if your parent is 60 or older; the IEB at 1-877-550-4227 if Medicaid is possible; the VA social worker if your parent served.
3. Call a licensed agency for an in-home assessment. Ask for the § 611.57 packet and a written care plan with the tasks per visit.
4. Start with the hours that cover the list. Twenty hours a week at $34 is about $2,947 a month; hours can be added within a week.
5. Keep every invoice. Home care can count toward the IRS medical expense deduction when a doctor certifies the need, and an LTC insurer will ask for them.

Frequently asked questions