Publicly Funded Home Care in New Brunswick

Your parent wants to stay home, and you want to know what the province will actually pay for. The answer depends on which of two completely separate public programs your parent needs — and the distinction between them catches most families off guard.

Two Public Home Care Streams

New Brunswick funds home care through two departments that do not coordinate with each other automatically.

The Extra-Mural Program (Department of Health) delivers clinical care at home: nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, respiratory therapy, palliative care, and dietitian services. It is fully covered under Medicare — no income test, no co-pay. Any resident with a valid Medicare card whose condition can be safely treated at home is eligible.

Home Support Services (Department of Social Development) provides personal care workers for non-medical daily needs: bathing, dressing, grooming, meal preparation, light housekeeping, and medication reminders. This program is income-tested. Families pay a co-payment based on net household income under the Standard Family Contribution Policy.

If your parent needs both — say, wound care after surgery and daily help with bathing — you apply to both programs separately.

Home Support Services: Who Qualifies and What It Costs

Eligibility is determined by a functional assessment, not a medical diagnosis. The Department of Social Development sends a social worker to evaluate whether your parent needs regular, ongoing help with activities of daily living that cannot be provided by family alone.

The financial calculation uses net household income from the last two years of tax filings. Under current thresholds: single seniors with net incomes below $27,500 receive fully subsidized home support; the threshold is $38,500 for couples and $55,000 for couples with dependants. Above those thresholds, families pay a sliding-scale contribution toward the standard contracted agency rate of $30.09 per hour.

Assets are excluded. Your parent's home, savings, investments, and RRSPs are not factored into the financial assessment. Only regular monthly income counts.

The Self-Managed Support Option

One of the most underutilized programs in New Brunswick's elder care system is Self-Managed Support (SMS). Instead of receiving home care through a contracted agency, the family gets a monthly lump sum directly and hires their own caregivers.

This means the family can hire trusted neighbours, friends, or non-resident family members to provide care — no pre-approval for the specific provider is required. The family manages scheduling, payment, and supervision directly. For families in rural areas where agency staffing is thin, or where the senior strongly prefers familiar faces, SMS can be a better fit than traditional agency care.

To access SMS, the family must apply through the same Long Term Care Program intake (1-833-733-7835). The social worker's functional assessment determines the approved hours, and the monthly payment is calculated based on those hours at the contracted rate.

The Home Care Worker Shortage

New Brunswick faces a significant home care worker shortage, particularly in rural regions and the Acadian Peninsula. Even when a family qualifies for subsidized home support hours, the contracted agency may not have enough personal support workers to fill all approved shifts.

This shortage creates a gap where a parent is approved for, say, 20 hours per week of home support but the agency can only reliably staff 12. Families are left covering the remaining hours themselves or paying out of pocket for private agencies at market rates of $22 to $30 per hour.

The Self-Managed Support option can partially address this — by allowing families to recruit locally rather than depending on agency staffing pools — but it requires the family to take on employer responsibilities like scheduling and payroll.

Private Home Care Agencies

When public funding does not cover enough hours, or the waitlist for subsidized care is too long, private agencies fill the gap. Major private home care providers operating in New Brunswick include Bayshore HealthCare, Kindred Home Care, Aviora Healthcare, Integrity Home Health Services, Just Like Family, and Caring Companion.

Private rates range from $22 to $30 per hour for personal support workers and higher for licensed practical nurses or registered nurses. These costs are fully out of pocket — private agency fees are not subsidized by the province.

Getting Started

To begin the process for publicly funded home care, call the Department of Social Development's intake line at 1-833-733-7835, or apply online through Social Supports New Brunswick. Have your parent's Medicare card, social insurance number, and two years of tax documentation ready.

For Extra-Mural Program clinical care, ask your parent's physician to make a direct referral, or use the online referral form through the Medavie Care Coordination Centre.

The New Brunswick Care Decision Guide walks through both application processes step by step, including financial worksheets and strategies for navigating the home care worker shortage.

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