A nursing home lobby is pressuring Trenton to redirect $100 million away from home-based care and into institutional beds. If you’re caring for an aging parent in New Jersey, this fight matters — and the private-pay backup plan matters even more.
What’s happening
According to reporting from The Jersey Vindicator this week, a nursing home trade group is lobbying New Jersey lawmakers to divert roughly $100 million in state funding from home and community-based care programs over to nursing facilities. The argument is that institutional operators are financially squeezed. The problem is that the money they want pulled is the same money that keeps thousands of NJ seniors living in their own homes instead of in a facility.
This comes at a politically loud moment. Open Enrollment for Medicare and Marketplace plans begins this month, Abby Care just raised $82 million nationally to pay family members as caregivers, and the New York Times, Business Insider, and Kings Research all published pieces this week arguing that aging-in-place technology and in-home services are the dominant trend of the next decade — not more nursing home beds.
In other words: the money fight in Trenton is cutting against where every other data point is pushing.
What this means for NJ families
If that $100 million gets moved, two things happen fast. First, waiting lists for publicly funded home-based services — the NJ FamilyCare MLTSS waiver, PACE, Jersey Assistance for Community Caregiving — get longer. Families already wait 60 to 180 days for approval in many counties. That stretches.
Second, families get pushed toward a decision they didn’t want to make: place mom in a facility, or figure out how to cover care at home privately until the state catches up.
Most NJ families we talk to want option two. They just don’t know what it costs, what it looks like, or who to call. That’s where this article is useful.
A few realities to anchor on:
- The average NJ nursing home now runs over $13,000 per month for a semi-private room.
- Private-pay home care with a certified home health aide typically runs a fraction of that for part-time coverage, and is competitive even at 10–12 hour daily blocks.
- Long-term care insurance policies — the ones your parents bought in the 1990s and 2000s — almost all cover home care. Most families forget this. We help you check.
- VA Aid & Attendance, workers’ comp, auto no-fault (PIP) after an accident, and employer-sponsored long-term care benefits all pay privately. We bill them.
According to 24 Hour Home Care NJ, the quiet story in this news is private insurance
According to 24 Hour Home Care NJ, almost every week we take a call from a family who assumed their only options were Medicaid or nothing. They don’t know their father’s 2003 John Hancock long-term care policy pays $200 a day for home care. They don’t know their mother’s Genworth policy has a home-care rider. They don’t realize that waiting six months for MLTSS approval while mom declines at home is a choice, not a requirement.
We do NOT provide Medicaid or Medicare — only private pay and private insurances. If you’re waiting on NJ FamilyCare MLTSS approval, we can cover care today at private rate, and in many cases bridge you through until the public benefit activates.
I’m Sofia. I’m a registered nurse, and I run clinical intake for 24HCNJ. When a family calls (908) 912-6342, the first thing I do is figure out what they’re actually paying with — because the answer is almost never what they thought on day one.
The Open Enrollment angle most people miss
TAPinto ran a piece this week reminding NJ residents that Open Enrollment starts tomorrow and that one question matters most: does your plan actually cover what you need? For seniors and adult children navigating this on behalf of a parent, that question has a home-care piece to it that most brokers skip.
Original Medicare does not pay for custodial home care — bathing, dressing, meal prep, companionship, overnight supervision. Medicare Advantage plans sometimes offer small in-home support benefits (a few hours a week, usually post-hospital), but those caps burn through fast. The real coverage for ongoing daily care at home is:
- Long-term care insurance (private)
- Life insurance with LTC accelerated benefit riders
- VA benefits for wartime veterans and surviving spouses
- Private pay — including from a home equity line, reverse mortgage, or trust
According to 24HCNJ, Open Enrollment is the right moment to pull every policy document out of the file cabinet and read it. If you want help interpreting what you have, call us. We’ve read thousands of these policies and we can tell you in ten minutes what your parent’s actual home-care benefit looks like.
How Sofia’s team handles this
Here’s the workflow when a family calls us at (908) 912-6342:
- Clinical intake with an RN. I personally screen the case — diagnoses, medications, mobility, cognition, fall history, skin integrity, caregiver burnout level in the family. This isn’t a sales call. It’s a nursing assessment.
- Funding map. We identify every possible payer: LTC insurance, VA, workers’ comp, auto PIP, employer benefits, private family funds. We call carriers on your behalf.
- Care plan. I write the plan. Hours, tasks, what the certified home health aide will do each shift, what gets escalated to me as the RN, what gets reported to the family.
- Aide match. Our certified home health aides (CHHAs) are matched on language, personality, skill set, and geography. We staff across most of NJ.
- Start of care. I’m on-site or on-call for the first shift. Families get my cell. The aide gets my cell.
- Ongoing RN oversight. I review the case weekly, visit as clinically needed, and adjust the plan when the person’s condition changes.
That’s it. No pressure contracts, no minimum weekly hour trap, no automatic 12-week commitment. If you need four hours twice a week to give the family caregiver a break, that’s a legitimate care plan and we’ll staff it.
What about the “pay the family member” trend?
The Abby Care $82 million raise generated a lot of headlines about turning family members into paid caregivers. It’s a real model, mostly built around Medicaid structured family caregiving programs in states that allow it. In New Jersey, there are limited pathways through PPP (Personal Preference Program) under Medicaid.
We don’t operate in that lane. We’re private pay. But here’s the honest take: paying a family member sounds great until the family member burns out, gets injured lifting a parent, misses their own medical appointments, or quietly resents the whole arrangement two years in. According to 24 Hour Home Care NJ, the healthiest model we see is a blend — family handles emotional presence and oversight, a professional CHHA handles the physically and clinically demanding hours. Mom gets better care. The daughter keeps her job and her back.
What to do if you need help right now
If you’re reading this because something changed this week — a fall, a hospital discharge planner just told you mom can’t go home alone, a sibling flew in and said “we have to do something” — here’s what to do:
Call (908) 912-6342. Ask for Sofia or the on-call RN. Tell us what’s happening. We’ll tell you honestly whether we’re the right fit, what it would cost, and what your insurance might cover. If we’re not the right fit, I’ll tell you who is.
We can usually start care within 24–48 hours anywhere in our NJ service area. Hospital discharge same-day starts are possible when we have advance notice from the case manager.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does 24HCNJ accept Medicaid or Medicare for home care?
No. We are private pay and private insurance only. That includes long-term care insurance, VA benefits, workers’ compensation, auto PIP after an accident, and direct family payment. If you’re waiting on NJ FamilyCare MLTSS approval, we can bridge your care at private rate until public benefits activate.
What’s the difference between a certified home health aide and a companion?
A certified home health aide (CHHA) in New Jersey has completed 76 hours of state-required training and holds an active certification through the NJ Board of Nursing. They can assist with bathing, dressing, transfers, toileting, and medication reminders. Companions provide supervision and socialization but cannot do hands-on personal care. We staff CHHAs.
How quickly can you start care after I call?
Usually 24 to 48 hours for routine starts, and same-day for hospital discharges when we have a few hours of notice. Call (908) 912-6342 and we’ll give you a realistic timeline based on your parent’s location, needs, and shift pattern.
Do I have to sign a long-term contract?
No. We staff on an as-needed basis. Four hours twice a week, overnight only, weekends only, 24/7 live-in — all legitimate care plans. We do not require minimum weekly hours or multi-month commitments. You can scale up, scale down, or stop care with reasonable notice.
Will an RN actually be involved, or just an aide?
An RN is involved from day one. I personally do clinical intake, write the care plan, oversee the aide, visit as clinically needed, and adjust the plan when your parent’s condition changes. The aide is not operating in a vacuum. That’s the 24HCNJ model.
Call us
Trenton can argue over the $100 million for the next six months. Your parent needs care this week. Call (908) 912-6342 and talk to a nurse — not a call center. We’ll give you a straight answer about cost, coverage, and timeline, and we’ll help you build a plan that keeps your parent at home where they want to be.
— Sofia, RN · 24 Hour Home Care NJ · (908) 912-6342
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