Aging at Home SafetyHome or assisted living: your own numbers
Change any box. Figures start as national medians or examples; replace them with real quotes.
Formula: home = changes + years × 12 × living costs + years × 52 × hours × rate. Assisted living = years × 12 × monthly fee. Flat prices, no inflation. These are national medians and your own inputs, not quotes.
What the numbers rest on
CareScout's 2025 Cost of Care Survey (about 16,000 completed provider surveys, July to November 2025) gives these national medians:
- Assisted living: $6,200 a month, $74,400 a year.
- Non-medical caregiver at home: $35 an hour. CareScout prices this at 44 hours a week, or $80,080 a year.
- Adult day health care: $95 a day.
- Nursing home, semi-private room: $9,581 a month.
Those are medians for the whole country. Your town can be well above or below them, so replace them with real quotes. Call two agencies and two assisted living communities and type in what they say.
A worked example
Say Mom needs about 20 hours of help a week: morning routine, meals, a ride to appointments. We assume her home costs $2,000 a month to keep (taxes, utilities, food, insurance). That $2,000 is our example, not a national figure. We also assume $5,000 of home changes: a few grab bars, a handrail and better lights.
| Home | Assisted living | |
|---|---|---|
| Home changes | $5,000 | $0 |
| Living costs, 5 years | $120,000 | included in the fee |
| Paid help, 20 h/week at $35 | $182,000 | included at base level |
| Five-year total | $307,000 | $372,000 |
Home comes out $65,000 cheaper over five years. Push the help to 44 hours a week with no home costs counted, and home is $28,400 more expensive. The break-even for this example is about 27 hours a week.
What the calculator leaves out
It uses flat prices. It does not raise either side for inflation, and I did not find a sourced growth rate to use, so it assumes none. Assisted living fees can rise when care needs go up; the CareScout median is a base figure and I did not find what extra care levels add. Overnight help, a home aide who is sick, and a parent who needs nursing care all change the picture. So does the parent's wish. Many people would pay more to stay in their own house.
What home changes cost
Fixr's cost guide (last updated August 2022, so prices are older) lists grab bars at $90 to $300, indoor stair handrails at $800 to $1,200, a ramp at $1,400 to $3,000, a stair lift at $4,000 to $8,000, and a curbless shower at $2,500 to $9,000. Add up only the changes you plan, put the total in the first box, and treat it as a rough starting point until you have a written quote.
Who pays
Medicare does not pay for custodial or personal care when that is the only care you need, according to Medicare.gov. Home health aide care is covered only alongside skilled nursing or therapy, and only if the person is homebound. So most of the paid help in the calculator is a private cost. Medicaid programs and other help vary by state.
Why falls belong in this math
The CDC says more than 1 in 4 older adults fall each year, and one fall doubles the chance of another. About 1.4 million of the 4.5 million yearly emergency visits for falls end in a hospital stay. A fall can turn a home plan into a nursing home bill overnight, so cheap fixes done early are part of the cost of staying home.