Benefits for care at home

Several different benefits are available to support people in need of care who wish to live at home. For example, benefits from a home care service and assistance from home care support services can be used as non-cash care benefits. The statutory care insurance funds cover these costs up to certain maximum limits.

Those in need of care and their loved ones providing care to them can mix and match the various benefits available for care at home to best suit their individual situation. Before a contract is concluded, the care service or professional caregivers selected must provide information about the likely costs in the form of a cost estimate. They also need to provide prompt information whenever there is a major change to these costs. In this way, care recipients should be able to understand the costs of their care arrangements. 

People in need of care can also claim financial benefits such as the care allowance. The care recipients must then use this care allowance to ensure they have suitable care and assistance at home.

It is also possible for the costs of care aids or necessary home renovations to be covered or subsidized. The additional relief allowance can furthermore be used to pay for resources for everyday support. 

Semi-residential day or night care can also be used to ensure that people are receiving sufficient care. Temporary respite care bridges last-minute situations where a person cannot be cared for at home. The respite care allowance ensures care at home if the usual caregiver is temporarily unavailable. The long-term care insurance providers subsidize the individual types of care.

Recipients of care at home are entitled to non-cash care benefits. This means that people in need of care are entitled to assistance from an approved non-residential care or support service or independent professional caregivers. These are professional caregivers who work independently of home care services.

The care and support services and individual professional caregivers must have concluded a contract with the relevant long-term care insurance fund. The fund covers the costs of non-cash care benefits up to a legally defined maximum amount. Which specific costs it covers depends on the care grade assigned to the care recipient. Care grade 2 is the minimum requirement. 

The support or care does not necessarily have to be provided within the care recipient’s home. The non-cash care benefits can also be received if care recipients are supported in their home on an hourly basis, for example.

Home care services 

Home care services support people in need of care and their loved ones by providing care at home. In this way, they aim to help care recipients to continue living in their familiar environment. These services relieve the burden on relatives who are acting as caregivers, for example, by allowing them to better reconcile their working life and their caregiving role.

Examples of the support provided by home care services include:

• help with personal hygiene, nutrition, and exercise 
• help with household chores, such as cooking and cleaning 
• help in the event of a lack of orientation, for example due to dementia
• help with everyday life and with maintaining social contacts 
• treatment care in the home, such as wound care or administering medication
• advising care recipients and their loved ones 
• help with communicating with services such as food delivery services, driving services, and transport to hospital 

Home care support services 

Home care support services offer a wide range of support. This not only includes care at home but also other assistance and support in the following areas: 

• everyday life 
• housekeeping
• help in the event of a lack of orientation, for example due to dementia
• maintaining social contacts 
• helping with the care recipient’s social skills 

Unlike care services, support services do not perform physical care measures. Likewise, they do not conduct home consultations. However, there are also tasks that can be completed by both care and support services. Examples of these include help with a lack of orientation, help with everyday life, help maintaining social contacts or domestic help. 

Reputable search portals for care services include:
Federal Association of Public Health Insurance Companies (AOK-Bundesverband): Care Navigator (Pflegenavigator)
Federal Association of Company Health Insurance Funds (BKK-Dachverband): CareFinder (PflegeFinder)
Association of Substitute Health Insurance Funds (Verband der Ersatzkassen – VDEK): Care Guide (Pflegelotse)

People in need of care may also decide not to avail of care and support services if relatives, friends or volunteers are providing these for them. Long-term care insurance pays the care allowance for this purpose. Care recipients can pay caregivers the care allowance as a form of financial recognition. Under certain circumstances, this compensation is tax free for the caregivers.

Further information on care allowances, such as the prerequisites and the amount, can be found in our article “Nursing care allowance for self-organized care”.

It is also possible to avail of care allowance and non-cash benefits for non-residential care in combination and at the same time. This enables people to tailor the care to their specific needs. 

In such cases, the more non-cash benefits are used, the greater the reduction in care allowance. The long-term care insurance provider calculates how much care allowance is paid out each month by reviewing invoices to determine what percentage of the non-cash care benefits available has actually been used. The corresponding proportion is then deducted from the care allowance.

Example: A care recipient with a care grade of 2 is entitled to 761 euros worth of non-cash benefits per month. In January, the care recipient makes use of quarter of these. The care allowance for January is then reduced by a quarter. Instead of 332 euros, the care recipient only receives 249 euros in care allowance. 

When receiving care at home, care recipients are entitled to an additional relief allowance of up to 125 euros per month. This applies to care recipients at every care grade, including care grade 1.  
The additional relief allowance is linked to a specific purpose. It can be used to relieve the burden on family caregivers or other people who help to provide care or to improve the care recipient’s independence and autonomy in everyday life.

What is the conversion entitlement?

Further to the additional relief allowance, people can pay for resources for everyday support with the aid of what is known as the conversion entitlement. Anyone who has not fully used up their entitlement to non-cash benefits can convert the unused amount and use it for resources for everyday support instead. Exactly what these resources are depends on the federal state concerned. In all, a maximum of 40 percent of the total amount for non-cash benefits for care at home can be converted.

If a private caregiver is temporarily unable to care for the person in need of care, the respite care allowance can be used. The respite care allowance aims to relieve the burden on caregivers, for example by enabling them to go on holiday or take some time for themselves. If the caregiver is ill, the respite care allowance can also be used to cover the cost of non-residential replacement care.

If the caregiver is only unavailable during certain hours, for example, due to having regular appointments, respite care can also be utilized by the hour. The entitlement to the allowance usually applies once the caregiver has been caring for the care recipient in their home environment for at least six months. 

Short-term care allowance is an alternative to respite care allowance. This enables temporary care in residential care facilities.

Care recipients with care grades of 1 to 5 can apply to their long-term care insurance fund for a subsidy of up to 4,000 euros for any necessary modifications to their home. The purpose of the modifications must be to enable care at home, make care at home easier, or restore independent living as far as possible. They should also help prevent professional caregivers or loved ones providing care from becoming overburdened by their caregiving role.

Home adaptation subsidies are available, for example, for measures that are connected to substantial changes to the fabric of the building. These include, for example, widening doorways, making bathrooms compatible with caregiving, and installing ramps and stairlifts. If necessary for care purposes, the installation and adaptation of furniture is financially supported.  

Care recipients can also receive a further home adaptation subsidy if their care situation changes in such a way that additional installations or adaptations are required. For the subsidy to actually be paid out, all adaptation measures must be applied for and approved prior to work commencing.

What benefits are available to make care group homes (Pflege-WGs) fully accessible?

Care recipients living in care group homes are also entitled to this subsidy. Up to four members of a care group home who are in need of care can receive 4,000 euros each, i.e. up to 16,000 euros in total. If there are more than four people with the entitlement, the overall sum of 16,000 euros is spread proportionately among the residents.

Care recipients with care grades 1 to 5 who are being cared for at home are also entitled to care aids. These are devices and equipment that make care at home easier, alleviate the care recipients’ symptoms, or enable them to live a more independent life. 

The long-term care insurance scheme differentiates between technical care aids and consumable care aids. Technical care aids include e.g. care beds, positioning aids, and alarm systems. Consumable care aids include, for example, disposable gloves and bed pads. 

Care aids can be medically prescribed or recommended by professional nursing and care staff. They must then be applied for from a long-term care insurance provider within 14 days under provision of this recommendation. Medical prescriptions must also be approved by long-term care insurance providers.

Aids for independent living are also supported. Examples of such aids include stove monitors or medication dispensers, which release medication at specific times and emit an audible alarm to remind people to take it. 

The long-term care insurance provider is responsible for covering the cost of care aids if other providers, such as the health insurance provider, are not required to do so. The long-term care insurance provider can be responsible, for example, if a care bed or wheeled walker is required.

Care aids intended to compensate for health impairments, on the other hand, are covered by health insurance providers. This applies, for example, if someone is unable to walk due to breaking a bone and requires a wheelchair. In this case, the wheelchair will be medically prescribed to support the healing process.

What financial assistance is available for care aids?

Care recipients over the age of 18 have to contribute 10 percent toward the cost of technical aids up to a maximum of 25 euros per aid. Larger technical care aids can often be hired. No personal contribution is required in this case.

The long-term care insurance provider refunds up to 40 euros per month for consumable care aids.

Since 2023, the costs of digital care applications (DiPA) have also been covered by long-term care providers under certain conditions. 

For a guide to which care aids the long-term care insurance fund may pay for, refer to the list of aids specified by the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (GKV-Spitzenverband).

There is more information on care at home on the website of the Federal Ministry of Health (Bundesgesundheitsministerium).

These Ministry publications answer many questions about care at home: 

Long-Term Care Guide

Care Benefits – A Reference Resource