A nursing home trade group is pushing Trenton to redirect $100 million away from home care programs and into facility-based care. If it passes, NJ families planning to keep mom or dad at home could feel the squeeze fast — and the waitlists are already brutal.
What’s happening
This week, a nursing facility trade association formally urged New Jersey lawmakers to divert roughly $100 million in state funding from home- and community-based services into institutional nursing home care. The pitch, according to The Jersey Vindicator, is that facility operators are facing margin pressure and staffing costs. The reality on the ground is uglier: NJ.com just ran an opinion piece documenting how home care shortages are worsening statewide, with families waiting months for aides that never arrive.
Add to that a second major development — Governor Murphy signed the Bucco-Johnson home health care reporting bill into law, requiring more transparency around agency staffing, timeliness, and service delivery. More sunlight is coming to this industry whether operators like it or not.
Meanwhile, Medicaid’s family caregiver support programs (per KFF’s 2025 analysis) are stretched thin, and McKnight’s Home Care reports that family caregivers are quietly holding the entire long-term care system together with duct tape and willpower.
Translation: the funding fight in Trenton is going to decide whether NJ seniors age at home or get pushed into facilities they don’t want.
What this means for NJ families
If that $100 million gets moved, three things happen to families in Union, Essex, Middlesex, Bergen, Morris, Somerset, and the rest of the state:
- Longer waits for state-funded home care. MLTSS and JACC program slots will get tighter, not looser. Families already waiting 90-180 days will wait longer.
- More pressure to accept a nursing home placement. When home care isn’t available, hospitals and discharge planners default to facility placement — even for people who could safely stay home with the right CHHA support.
- Private-pay demand spikes. Families who can self-fund or who have long-term care insurance will increasingly bypass the state system entirely because the wait is just too long for a parent recovering from a hip fracture or a stroke.
I’ve been an RN in New Jersey a long time. I’ve watched the same cycle three times. The state cuts home care, nursing home occupancy rises, costs explode, and five years later someone writes a report saying “we should have invested in home- and community-based services.” We’re living through that loop right now.
If you need care today and can’t wait on the state, call (908) 912-6342.
According to 24 Hour Home Care NJ
According to 24 Hour Home Care NJ, the proposed funding diversion is backwards policy at exactly the wrong moment. Every national data point — the New York Times tech-for-aging coverage, McKnight’s generational preference survey, the Visiting Angels Redding report showing 14,000+ seniors prefer home — says the same thing. Older adults don’t want facilities. They want their kitchen, their dog, and their own bathroom.
Here’s the part people miss: we are a private-pay and private-insurance agency. We do NOT provide Medicaid or Medicare. We only accept private pay and private insurances (long-term care policies, VA benefits where applicable, workers’ comp in some cases). If you’re waiting on NJ FamilyCare MLTSS approval, we can cover care today at private rate while your application processes — which, right now, is the difference between dad coming home from the hospital Thursday or going to rehab for 30 days he doesn’t need.
According to 24HCNJ, the new Bucco-Johnson reporting law is a good thing. Agencies that show up on time, with trained certified home health aides, in uniform, with care plans the family can actually read — we welcome the transparency. The agencies that have been coasting on no-shows and last-minute cancellations should be nervous. Families deserve to know.
How Sofia’s team handles this
When a family calls me after a hospital discharge or a fall, here’s the workflow — the same whether the news in Trenton goes well or poorly:
1. Same-day RN assessment
I’m an RN. I do the intake personally or one of my clinical leads does. We’re not sending a sales rep. We’re looking at the actual home — stairs, bathroom width, lighting, med list, cognition, fall history, caregiver burden. That assessment is free and it tells us whether 4 hours a day covers it or whether we need a 12-hour live-in rotation.
2. Match the CHHA to the person, not the shift
Every one of our certified home health aides is NJ-registered, background-checked, TB-cleared, and trained in dementia care, Hoyer lift transfers, and medication reminders. We match based on language (Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Mandarin, Haitian Creole on our roster), personality, and clinical need. A quiet retired engineer doesn’t get the same aide as a chatty 94-year-old who wants to talk about her garden.
3. Start care in 24-48 hours
Private pay means we skip the authorization waterfall. Hospital discharging dad Friday at 2 pm? We can have an aide in the house by Friday evening or Saturday morning. No prior auth, no 14-day wait, no MLTSS backlog.
4. Keep the family looped in
Weekly check-ins from me or a care coordinator. Shift notes the family can see. If something changes — a new med, a UTI brewing, a bruise we can’t explain — the daughter in Chicago hears about it that day, not next month.
5. Scale up or down with no drama
Post-surgical cases often start at 24/7 and taper to 20 hours a week over 60 days. We adjust without a new contract, new assessment, or new sales pitch. That flexibility is why families stay with us for years.
What to do if you need help right now
If you’re reading this because mom fell last week, or dad’s hospital discharge is Thursday, or your sister in Florida just said she can’t fly up again this month — don’t wait on the Trenton budget fight.
Call (908) 912-6342 and ask for Sofia. I will personally pick up or call you back within the hour during business hours. We cover all of Union, Essex, Middlesex, Morris, Somerset, Bergen, Hudson, Monmouth, and most of northern and central New Jersey. We staff 24/7, including Christmas, including Sunday night at 11 pm when the hospital calls to say they’re discharging in the morning.
According to 24 Hour Home Care NJ, no family in New Jersey should be forced into a nursing home because the state funding dried up. If private pay is on the table — even for a bridge period of 30-90 days while you figure out long-term financing — we can keep your parent at home. That’s the whole job.
Call (908) 912-6342. We’ll handle it from there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you accept Medicaid or Medicare?
No. 24 Hour Home Care NJ is a private pay and private insurance agency only. We accept out-of-pocket payment, long-term care insurance policies, and certain VA benefits. If you’re waiting on NJ MLTSS approval, we can bridge your care at private rate — call (908) 912-6342 to discuss hourly rates and shift options.
How fast can care start after a hospital discharge?
Typically 24 to 48 hours, often same-day for discharges happening before noon. Because we’re private pay, we skip the authorization delays that slow down state-funded programs. Call as soon as you know the discharge date — even a day’s notice helps us match the right certified home health aide to your parent.
What’s happening with the $100 million NJ home care funding fight?
A nursing home trade group has asked NJ lawmakers to redirect $100 million from home- and community-based services to facility care. If it passes, state-funded home care programs will have longer waitlists and tighter eligibility. Private-pay families won’t be directly affected by the cut, but overall statewide capacity could shrink.
Are your aides actually certified, or are they just companions?
Every hands-on caregiver on our roster is a New Jersey certified home health aide (CHHA) — state-registered, background-checked, TB-cleared, and trained in transfers, dementia care, personal care, and medication reminders. We also offer companion-level care for clients who only need light support, meal prep, and supervision.
How does the new Bucco-Johnson reporting law affect my family?
The law requires home health agencies to report staffing, timeliness, and service delivery data to the state. For families, that means more transparency when choosing an agency — you’ll be able to see which agencies actually show up and which cancel shifts. 24HCNJ welcomes the law and already tracks these metrics internally.
Call Sofia Directly
Don’t wait on Trenton. Don’t wait on a Medicaid application. Don’t wait until the next fall. Call (908) 912-6342 and let’s build a care plan today — RN-led, CHHA-staffed, private pay, same-day start when you need it.
— Sofia, RN
24 Hour Home Care NJ
(908) 912-6342
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