In the 2025 CareScout Cost of Care Survey, released in March 2026, the Virginia annual median for an assisted living community was $83,328, up 7 percent from 2024, while 44 hours a week of a non-medical caregiver at home came to $80,080, up 6 percent. Virginia nursing home costs rose much faster: $123,005 a year for a semi-private room, up 18 percent, and $140,160 for a private room, up 19 percent. For families in Chesapeake, Richmond, and the surrounding communities, that means staying home is not automatically the expensive option. Whether it is cheaper depends on one variable: how many hours of help are genuinely needed each week. (CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey and 2025 Cost of Care Data for Virginia, released March 2, 2026)
Find Your Tipping Point
Assisted living is priced as a package: housing, meals, staffing, activities, and a level-of-care fee. Home care is priced by the hour, and you are already paying for the housing.
That is why hours decide the answer. Using the Virginia median of roughly $35 an hour as a planning benchmark and the formula hours times rate times 4.33 weeks:
- 12 hours a week, about $1,819 a month
- 20 hours a week, about $3,031 a month
- 30 hours a week, about $4,547 a month
- 44 hours a week, about $6,668 a month, roughly the level where the Virginia medians converge
Below the mid-forties in weekly hours, the arithmetic generally favors home. Above it, particularly if overnight supervision is needed every night, a facility may cost less. Those are survey medians for planning, not quotes.
(CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey and 2025 Cost of Care Data for Virginia, released March 2, 2026)
The Costs That Do Not Appear in Either Column
An honest comparison includes a few things brochures leave out.
- Staying home: utilities, property taxes, home maintenance, groceries, and any modifications like grab bars or a stair rail. Some of these you are already paying.
- Staying home: level-of-care creep. Needs rarely shrink. Build in a review every few months.
- Assisted living: a community fee or move-in fee, and level-of-care surcharges that increase as needs increase.
- Assisted living: the cost of clearing and selling or maintaining a house, and the practical loss of the home as an asset that was funding care.
- Both: memory care generally costs more than standard assisted living, and dementia supervision at home requires more hours than families first estimate.
The Parts That Are Not About Money
Cost is one input. The others matter and often decide it.
- A person with early dementia usually functions better in familiar surroundings.
- One-to-one attention at home differs from shared staffing in a community.
- Community, meals, and activities are a genuine benefit for someone who is isolated at home.
- A spouse who wants to stay together in the same house is not making a financial argument, and does not need to.
- Location: a facility near an adult child in Henrico may beat a house in Suffolk that nobody can get to on a weeknight.
How to Run This in One Evening
- Write down the hours of help actually needed each week, by time of day.
- Multiply hours by an hourly estimate by 4.33 for a monthly home care figure.
- Get two or three real quotes from local communities, all-in, including level-of-care fees and move-in fees.
- Add the household costs that continue in each scenario.
- Ask what changes in six months if needs increase, and price that too.
- Then decide, with the numbers in front of you rather than behind you.
What May Help Pay for Either
Long-term care insurance may help depending on the policy, and some policies pay more readily for care at home than for facility care. Veterans benefits may help eligible veterans and surviving spouses, and Aid and Attendance can be applied to either setting. Medicare may cover certain skilled home health services if a person qualifies, but usually does not pay for ongoing non-medical care or for assisted living room and board. Medicaid or Virginia’s CCC Plus Waiver may help some people who qualify. Program availability, eligibility, and benefit limits apply, and families should confirm coverage directly with the appropriate program, insurer, or benefits representative.
| Our free guide, “Who Pays for Home Care in Virginia?”, includes the full Virginia cost comparison table, a budget worksheet, and the questions to ask before you commit either way. |
| Request your free home care assessment. Serving Chesapeake and Hampton Roads: (757) 337-5160. Serving Richmond and Central Virginia: (804) 396-6000. |
If you or an aging loved one is considering Long Term Care in Richmond, VA, please contact the caring staff at Life’s At Home Care today! Chesapeake Office (757) 337-5160
Richmond Office (804) 396-6000
Life’s at Home Care is a top provider of home care services in Suffolk, Hampton, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Newport News, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Chesterfield, Hanover, Henrico, and the Richmond, Virginia area.
