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Private duty nursing in New York City
A trach, a wound vac, a feeding tube, an IV. These are the reasons a discharge planner tells families to look at a facility. Licensed RNs and LPNs work in the home instead, for the hours you choose.
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A visiting nurse and a private duty nurse are not the same thing
Most families learn the difference in the week after discharge, at the worst possible moment.
The visit is 45 minutes.
Medicare home health is intermittent by design — a nurse comes two or three times a week, checks the wound, documents, and leaves. That is the whole benefit. It is not a failure of the agency; it is what the coverage is.
Private duty is measured in hours.
Four hours in the morning. Overnight. Around the clock for the first ten days home. You choose the block of time, and you choose when it ends, not a coverage rule. Where the need is supervision rather than clinical, live-in care is often the better fit.
An aide cannot do what a nurse does.
A home health aide bathes, dresses, cooks, and helps your father to the bathroom. An aide cannot change a surgical dressing, flush a line, or give an injection. Families often pay for one and expect the other.
Someone has to watch the unscheduled days.
Readmissions rarely happen during the visit. They happen on day four, when the wound edge turns red and there is no one in the house who knows what red means.
We know what the first week home looks like
You are not managing a difficult patient. You are doing clinical work you were never trained for, alone, in your own home. That is the part nobody names.
From your call to a nurse in the home, in 3 steps
No intake maze and no sales call. A nurse goes through the case before anything is scheduled.
You call and describe the case.
Tell us what the discharge paperwork says: the wound, the lines, the feeding tube, how many hours you think you need. If it is not something we should take, we say so. Call (718) 232-2777 or use the form above.
Free, no obligation
A free nurse assessment, by phone.
A registered nurse goes through it with you: wound, lines, medications, mobility, who else is in the home. You get a written plan of care and an honest hour count, not the maximum we could bill.
Written plan of care
Care begins, and you know who is coming.
You get the name of the nurse before the first shift, and the same nurse wherever the schedule allows. Continuity here is not a nicety — it is how a change gets noticed on day four instead of in the emergency room.
You always know who is at the door
What a private duty nurse actually does at home
Skilled nursing tasks performed by licensed RNs and LPNs — not personal care, not companionship.
Wound and incision care
Surgical incisions, pressure injuries, diabetic ulcers, wound vac management — dressing changes on a schedule instead of when someone gets to it.
Injections and IV therapy
Insulin, anticoagulants and other prescribed injectable medications, plus support for home IV and infusion therapy, PICC lines and ports.
Catheter and ostomy care
Foley and suprapubic catheters, colostomy and urostomy care — and teaching the family what is normal and what is a phone call.
Tracheostomy and tube feeding
Trach suctioning and site care, oxygen support, G-tube and PEG feeding, pump handling and site monitoring.
Medication management
Reconciling the eleven bottles that came home from the hospital, building a schedule a person can actually follow, watching for interactions.
Assessment and monitoring
Vitals, wound trajectory, weight, blood sugar, early signs of infection — and a nurse’s judgment about when the doctor needs to hear about it today.
Post-surgical recovery
The first days home after surgery or a hospital stay, when the risk of readmission is highest and the discharge instructions make sense to nobody.
Teaching the family
So that in three weeks you are doing this confidently yourself, if that is where this is heading. We would rather work our way out of your home than keep you dependent on us.
RN or LPN — which one do you actually need?
Agencies rarely explain this, and it is the difference between roughly $50 and $110 an hour.
An LPN carries out the plan
Dressing changes, medication administration, tube feeding, catheter care, vitals, documentation. For a stable patient with a predictable clinical need, an LPN is the right nurse — and the lower cost.
An RN assesses and decides
Initial and ongoing assessment, complex or deteriorating wounds, IV therapy, teaching, and the judgment calls — when to escalate, when to call the surgeon, when the plan has to change. Every case we take is opened by an RN, whoever staffs it afterward.
In practice it is a mix
An RN opens the case and supervises; an LPN carries the routine hours. Paying RN rates for every hour of a stable case is the most common way families overspend on home nursing.
24-hour nursing at home
Medicare does not pay for around-the-clock care at home. It is not a loophole or an appeal: the benefit is built for part-time, intermittent visits and caps out at 28 hours a week in most cases.
Two or three nurses in rotation
Around the clock, for ventilator-dependent, post-ICU and end-of-life situations where a gap of a few hours is not acceptable.
What we can staff depends on the case
The patient's condition and clinical complexity decide what coverage we can put together. The nurse tells you on the assessment what is realistic, before you plan around it.
Nursing hours, aide hours
Rarely do all 24 hours need a nurse. The usual structure is nursing for the clinical work and an aide around it, at a third of the cost.
What does private duty nursing cost in New York in 2026?
Most agencies will not answer this on the phone. Here is the market, plainly.
| Type of care | Typical NYC agency rate |
|---|---|
| Home health aide (non-medical) | $32–35 per hour |
| LPN, private duty | $50–70 per hour |
| RN, private duty | $85–110+ per hour |
| Single skilled nursing visit | around $150 |
Market ranges for New York City, 2026. Rates vary with clinical complexity, shift length and borough.
Three things move the number more than anything else.
Whether you actually need an RN. A stable dressing change does not require RN hours. This single decision moves the bill more than any negotiation.
Nurse hours versus aide hours. The common structure is a nurse for the clinical hour and an aide for the other eleven, at a third of the price. Very few families are told this — it is also how nursing and private pay home care get combined.
How long the block is. Short one-hour visits carry travel and scheduling cost. Four-hour blocks and overnight shifts price better per hour.
Private duty nursing vs. Medicare home health
These are not competitors. Most families end up using both, for different hours.
| Medicare home health | Private duty nursing | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides the hours | The coverage rules and the plan of care | You do |
| Typical schedule | 2–3 visits a week, 45–60 minutes | Blocks of 4, 8, 12 or 24 hours |
| Maximum | Under 8 hours a day, 28 hours a week | No cap |
| Requires homebound status | Yes | No |
| Requires a physician’s order | Yes | Depends on the service |
| Who pays | Medicare, if you qualify | Private pay, long-term care insurance, and some plans |
| Ends when | The episode is certified as over | You decide it ends |
We are not neutral about this, and it is worth saying plainly: ProLife Home Care nurses staff cases for certified home health agencies across the city. If your Medicare benefit is already open, there is a fair chance the nurse at your door is ours. This page is about the other hours — the evenings, the weekend, the overnight, and the first ten days home, which no Medicare benefit is built to cover. If Medicare home health covers what you need, we will say so on the call and you should use it.
Private duty nursing across New York City and Nassau County
ProLife Home Care sends nurses throughout all five boroughs and Nassau County. Post-surgical recovery in Bay Ridge, wound care in Flushing, round-the-clock nursing in Riverdale. Every case is opened the same way, by a registered nurse.
All 48 neighborhoods
All 47 neighborhoods
All 32 neighborhoods
All 43 neighborhoods
All 37 neighborhoods
All 39 neighborhoods
Not sure if we cover your address? Call (718) 232-2777 and we confirm in under a minute.
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