Should home care agencies publish their rates?

What families face today

• Most agency sites say “call for a quote”, so families call agency after agency to learn one number.
• A Place for Mom shows an agency’s starting hourly rate only after a family shares contact details, on the agency page we checked.¹
• CareScout’s 2025 survey reports a California median of $40 an hour, but a median is not your price.²

What is already happening elsewhere

Price transparency is a stated direction in health care. Since 1 January 2021, the federal hospital price transparency rule requires each US hospital to provide clear, accessible pricing information online.³ Home care is a different market and there is no such rule for it, but families notice.

The common objections

• Competitors will undercut a published rate. A competitor can already ask for a quote. A published rate by care level, with your minimums and what is included, invites comparison on more than the hourly number.
• Rates vary by client. Publish the standard rates and your minimums, and say the final rate is confirmed before care starts.
• Fear of being locked in. You set the rate and can change it at any time. A rate card is re-confirmed every 90 days, so an old price never looks current.
• Price shoppers. A published rate may attract them. It may also filter out calls that would have ended at the price. We do not have evidence either way yet.

What to publish

Hourly rates for companion, personal and dementia care, your 12-hour and live-in rates, your minimum hours per visit and per week, and the date, signed by someone at the agency. That is what a rate card is.

What we do not know yet

We do not yet have inquiry data from published rates in Los Angeles, and we will not claim results we have not measured. The pilot exists to test whether agencies will attest a dated price and what happens next. If you would like to be one of the first, claim your free listing.