Most families in Northern Virginia start with somewhere between eight and twenty hours a week, usually built around the two or three times of day that are hardest, and the number goes up or down from there as life changes. At Paragon Home Care, rates range from $38 to $60 per hour depending on the care plan. Ask what’s included in the rate, not just what the rate is.
That is the short answer. The longer answer is more useful, because the hours question is rarely really about hours. It is usually about whether you are about to commit your mother, and your family’s savings, to something open-ended that you cannot see from another state.
So let us take it apart honestly.
Why nobody can tell you the number over the phone
If an agency gives you an hours figure in the first five minutes of a call, they are guessing. They have not seen the house, the stairs, the bathroom, or the hour of the day when things get difficult.
Hours come from a care plan, and a care plan comes from a conversation in the home: what your mother can still do comfortably on her own, what she has quietly stopped doing, and where the day tends to come apart. Sometimes the answer is mornings, because getting dressed and having a real breakfast takes ninety minutes now instead of twenty. Sometimes it is late afternoon and early evening, which is when many families with memory loss in the picture say the day gets harder. Sometimes it is simply the three days a week nobody in the family can drive her.
We build the plan around those hours, not around a package. Then we revisit it, because the plan that fits in October often needs adjusting by February.
What do typical schedules actually look like?
Here is honest math, using the range above, with no promises attached to any one household.
A starting schedule. Three mornings a week, four hours each, is twelve hours. At the low end of the range that is roughly $456 a week; toward the upper end of the range it is meaningfully more, because a plan involving significant dementia support or two-person assistance sits higher in the range. That schedule covers bathing and dressing, breakfast, light housekeeping, a grocery run and medication reminders.
A daily-presence schedule. Five days a week, five hours a day, is twenty-five hours. Families often land here when someone needs company and a steady hand through the middle of the day, or when the spouse doing most of the caring needs their afternoons back.
A most-of-the-day schedule. Seven days a week, eight hours a day, is fifty-six hours. This is where families go when the difficult hours have spread across the day, and it is often the point where they also ask about live-in care, which is charged per day rather than per hour and varies with the plan.
Minimums matter too. Very short visits are hard to staff well and harder to staff consistently, which is why most agencies in this area, including ours, work in blocks of several hours rather than one-hour drop-ins. It is not upselling. A caregiver who has four hours can help your mother shower without rushing her, and then sit down with her afterward.
It is not all or nothing
The fear underneath the hours question is usually that starting care means the slide has begun, and the number only ever goes one direction.
That is not what we see. Most families start with a few hours a week. Some stay there for a long time. Some add a day after a hard winter and take it back off in the spring. Accepting help is what protects independence, not what ends it: a parent who has help with the bathroom and the laundry and the driving is a parent who gets to stay in her own kitchen.
What should be included in the hourly rate?
This is the part price-comparison shopping misses, and it is the reason two rates that look similar are not the same purchase.
Ask any agency you speak with:
- Is the caregiver an employee of the agency, or an independent contractor? Under Virginia law, an organization that assists with activities of daily living in a person’s residence must be licensed, while registries that merely refer independent providers are exempt. Paragon Home Care is a Home Care Organization licensed by the Virginia Department of Health, Office of Licensure and Certification. Its scope is non-medical: personal care, companion care and homemaker services. Paragon does not provide skilled nursing, therapy or any other skilled or medical service. Our caregivers are Paragon employees: screened, trained, insured, bonded and supervised.
- Who carries the insurance and the bonding, and who handles payroll taxes and workers’ compensation? With an agency, that is our responsibility. With a referral registry or an app, it can quietly become the family’s.
- What dementia training do caregivers receive, and who provides it? Ours are trained through the National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners (NCCDP).
- Is there any additional charge for supervision, care plan updates or a visit from the office? At Paragon there is not.
- What happens if the assigned caregiver cannot come? There should be a real answer, not a shrug.
- Is anything else included at no additional cost? Every Paragon client receives Sensi.AI 24/7 safety monitoring included at no additional cost. For an adult daughter in Denver or Charlotte, that is the difference between taking a phone call on faith and having a fuller picture of how her mother’s days are going. It is not a medical device, not an emergency response system, and not a substitute for 911 or a personal alert button.
Ask what’s included in the rate, not just what the rate is. A lower number with none of the above is not a bargain.
Who pays for the hours?
Two things are worth being clear about before you build a budget.
Medicare does not pay for home care. It may cover a limited, physician-ordered period of home health, which is a different service delivered by skilled professionals for a defined episode. When that episode ends, the help with bathing, meals, laundry and companionship ends with it, and that is the gap private-duty home care fills. Paragon works with private pay and long-term care insurance only. We do not accept Medicare, Medicaid, the CCC Plus waiver or VA benefits.
If your parent holds a long-term care insurance policy, it may well pay for exactly this kind of care at home, and most families do not realize it. We help with the claim documentation carriers ask for.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a minimum number of hours per visit?
Yes, most home care in Northern Virginia is scheduled in blocks of several hours rather than single-hour visits. The reason is practical: real personal care takes time, and short fragments are difficult to staff with the same caregiver week after week. We will tell you our minimum plainly on the first call.
Does the hourly rate change for nights, weekends or holidays?
Some plans do sit at a different point in the range depending on timing, the level of assistance needed and whether the care is hourly or live-in. Live-in care is charged per day and varies with the plan. We will walk you through the specific figures for your parent’s plan after the assessment, in writing.
Can we start small and add hours later?
Yes, and most families do. Starting with two mornings a week lets your mother meet the caregiver on easy terms, which matters enormously if she has already told you she does not need anyone. Hours can be added, reduced or paused as her needs and your family’s schedule change.
A calm next step
Activities of daily living are the foundation. Connection is the difference. The hours you are trying to price are really the moments in between, where trust is built and comfort is felt.
If you want to talk it through, call 703-942-8950, we answer around the clock. You can also book a complimentary in-home assessment at https://paragonhomecare.com/book-an-assessment/ or reach us through the contact form at https://paragonhomecare.com/contact/.
And if you are still working out whether there is a problem to solve, read our free family guide, “When Home Stops Working,” at https://paragonhomecare.com/family-guide/.
Paragon Home Care · 1313 Dolley Madison Blvd, Suite 401, McLean, VA 22101 · 703-942-8950 · mail@paragonhomecare.com
More than tasks. Meaningful care.