The short answer
The simplest way is to sell it the way you sell care: a monthly service for the hours between visits, at a price you set, on your own invoice, with no shift to fill, using a service built for it, such as Senecta, which agencies offer under their own name. Medicare's remote patient monitoring is billed by physicians and other practitioners, not by non-medical agencies, and Medicaid programs that pay for monitoring usually define it as an emergency response system with a staffed center. What turns it into revenue rather than a gadget is the response plan behind it: who answers an alert, and how fast.
Why monitoring is a revenue line you can staff
Selling more care hours is the hardest way to grow. The national median rate for a non-medical caregiver reached $35 an hour in 2025 (CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey), and every hour sold needs someone to show up: in 2025 benchmarking data, caregiver turnover was 75% and 39% of agencies turned down cases because they had no one to send (Home Health Care News). Monitoring is sold by the month and delivered without a shift.
Families are ready to spend on technology that helps a parent stay at home. In AARP's 2026 research, 66% of adults 50 and older agreed that technology enriches life and makes aging easier, older adults spent $756 on technology on average, and 55% of family caregivers used at least one form of technology to coordinate care (AARP).
Who pays: three routes
| Route | Who pays | What it covers | Can a non-medical agency bill it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private pay | The client or the family | The service you define: cover between visits, at a monthly price you set | Yes, as its own line next to care hours |
| Medicaid | The state's Medicaid program | Where the state covers it, a personal emergency response system as the state defines it | Only as an enrolled provider of that service, where the state allows |
| Medicare remote patient monitoring | Medicare | Physiologic data, such as blood pressure or blood sugar, for an acute or chronic condition | No: a physician or other practitioner bills it |
Medicaid. Many states pay for a personal emergency response system through Medicaid, and the definitions are specific. New York's rule, for example, defines it as equipment that signals a monitoring agency, with continuous monitoring by a trained operator; a local social services district may authorize it alongside personal care when, among other reasons, it would reduce the personal care hours a person needs, and home health agencies can be providers (18 NYCRR 505.33). The definitions describe a device the person activates and a staffed center, so check your state's before counting on it.
Medicare. Only physicians and other practitioners who can bill evaluation and management services can bill remote monitoring, for an acute or chronic condition, with an established patient relationship and the patient's consent, and with a device that meets the FDA's definition of a medical device (CMS, December 2025). It is a clinical service billed by medical practices, not something a non-medical agency can bill.
What to charge for
Price it as a service, not as a device. Your cost has four parts: what the monitoring service costs you, the time to set up each home and agree the response plan with the family, your team's time on alerts, and the monthly review with families. Families will weigh your price against care hours: at the $35 national median, a single ten-hour night with a caregiver costs $350 (CareScout).
- A monthly line next to the care hours. One fee per home on your invoice, billed as its own service, because no caregiver is in the home during those hours.
- Part of a premium care package. A tier that includes it, priced above hours alone.
- The answer when a family cannot buy more hours. Something you can say yes to, instead of losing the client.
Private-pay home care: growing revenue between visits covers packaging in more depth.
Choose a service you can sell as yours
The vendor decides how much of the service is yours. Ask:
- Whose name do families see? Senecta is offered under your agency's name; Pontosense offers white-label and co-brand options to partners, Lifeguard Health is co-branded with the agency, and Sensi.AI's brand guidelines rule out white labeling (Compare has each, with sources).
- Who answers alerts? A vendor's own center, as with Lifeguard Health's 24/7 alert center, or your team and the family.
- What is the term? A long contract or month to month; a minimum number of homes or none.
- What does the home need? Wi-Fi or a built-in cellular connection, something to wear or nothing, an installer or a plug.
- What is kept? Whether audio or images are stored, for how long, and whether your clients' data trains the vendor's models.
- Does it connect to your care software? So alerts sit next to the care record.
The rules that apply
- Consent. The client, or their legal representative, agrees before anything is switched on. In all-party consent states, such as California, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Washington, everyone in a conversation must consent before it is recorded (Reporters Committee summary).
- HIPAA. A provider is covered only if it sends health information electronically in standard transactions, such as claims (HHS). If your agency is covered and a vendor creates, receives, keeps or transmits protected health information for you, the vendor is a business associate, and the information can be shared only under a business associate agreement (HHS).
This is not legal advice; check your state's rules with counsel.
A 90-day launch
- Weeks 1–2: pick the first homes. Ten to twenty clients who live alone, have fallen before, or whose families want more cover than they can buy in hours.
- Weeks 2–4: write the response plan and train the team. Who answers at night and at weekends, what counts as no answer, and how alerts are recorded.
- Weeks 4–8: offer it at every assessment and care review. As part of the care plan, with the rooms chosen together and the limits written down.
- Weeks 8–12: measure. The share of families who take it, alerts per home and the minutes each takes, and whether families with cover stay longer.
Where Senecta fits
Senecta is built to be sold this way. It makes plug-in pods that home care agencies offer under their own name. Each pod pairs a low-resolution thermal sensor, which sees a person as a warm shape rather than a face, with a microphone, and uses AI to notice a possible fall in the room. The pod then asks the client “Are you okay?” and, if the answer is not a clear yes, calls the people in the home's response plan: your agency, the family, or both, in the order you choose. Each pod has its own cellular connection, so the home needs no Wi-Fi. You set the price and bill families for it as its own service; Senecta's terms with your agency are month to month, with no minimum number of homes. Senecta is not a staffed emergency service, and families cannot buy it directly: it is offered through agencies. How it works has the steps from the order to the first alert.
Further reading
Questions agency owners ask
Can a non-medical home care agency bill Medicare for remote monitoring?
No. Only physicians and other practitioners who can bill evaluation and management services can bill Medicare for remote monitoring, for a patient they have an established relationship with, using a device that meets the FDA's definition of a medical device.
Does Medicaid pay for in-home monitoring?
In some states, as a personal emergency response system, under the state's own definition, which usually means a device the person activates and a staffed monitoring center. New York, for example, lets a local district authorize one alongside personal care.
How much should an agency charge for monitoring?
You set it, as a monthly service next to your care hours: below what the hours it covers would cost, and above your full cost, including your team's time on alerts.
Do we need more staff to offer monitoring?
No new shifts. You need a response plan for each home: who receives alerts, who follows up, and who covers nights and weekends, which can include the family.
Next step
Price it for your own book.
Thirty minutes: which families to offer it to, how to package it, and how the response would work.
Book your agency demoSenecta sells a monitoring service described here, so read this with that in mind. This is not legal or billing advice. Figures are from the sources linked, checked on October 24, 2026. Senecta is not an emergency service, does not replace in-person care, and no system detects every fall.