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Home Care Rates by State: Private Pay and Medicaid
Non-medical home care cost a median $35 an hour in 2025. What drives state differences, what Medicaid pays for personal care in four states, and how to price your agency.
Home care rates in Iowa: private pay and Medicaid
Last verified October 17, 2026 · All Iowa resources
Non-medical in-home care in Iowa cost a median of $41 an hour in 2025, according to the CareScout Cost of Care Survey, against $35 nationally.
What do families pay for home care in Iowa?
| Measure | Iowa | United States |
|---|---|---|
| Median hourly cost, non-medical in-home care | $41 | $35 |
| Caregiver wage, mean hourly (BLS) | $17.76 | — |
CareScout's 2025 survey reports homemaker and home health aide services together as non-medical in-home care. In Iowa the median price is 2.3 times the average caregiver wage.
What does Iowa Medicaid pay for personal care?
Attendant care, Elderly Waiver fee schedule rate per 15-minute unit, effective 2026-10-01 (skilled S5125 U3 $7.23; home maintenance S5130 $6.55). Iowa HHS HCBS Waiver Rate Change Implementation Guide SFY27. Open the official rate source . Managed care plans may pay different rates.
What do caregivers earn in Iowa?
Home health and personal care aides in Iowa earned a median of $17.34 an hour in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The lowest-paid tenth earned under $14.63 and the highest-paid tenth over $21.87. See pay in Iowa's largest metro areas.
What is the minimum wage for caregivers in Iowa?
Iowa's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
Overtime rules are on the Iowa overtime and minimum wage page.
How much should a home care agency charge per hour in Iowa?
Enough to cover fully loaded caregiver labor, overhead and a margin. Starting from the Iowa median aide wage of $17.34, with a 20% payroll burden, 5% paid time off and training, 5% unbilled travel, 5% overtime, 25% overhead and a 10% margin, the calculator below gives about $36.46 an hour. Change any number to match your agency.
How does the calculator work?
Labor cost per billed hour is the pay rate, plus half the overtime share for time-and-a-half, plus payroll burden, divided by the share of paid hours you can bill. The bill rate is labor divided by one minus overhead and margin when overhead is a share of revenue, or labor plus overhead divided by one minus margin when it is dollars per hour. The bill rate to test starts at the Iowa median price, so you can see the margin a typical rate leaves.
If you budget overhead as an annual figure, the bill rate calculator spreads it over your billable hours instead. Both are estimates for planning, not pricing or wage-and-hour advice.
Sources
More for Iowa
Home care rates by state: other states
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