Hiring a registered nurse for home care is priced per 12-hour shift, starting at 3,500 baht per day, 22,500 baht per week and 90,000 baht per month. A caregiver starts at 1,800 baht per 12-hour shift. The gap is nearly double because the scope differs: nurses perform procedures and make nursing decisions, caregivers handle daily living. Most families do not need a nurse full time; they combine a resident caregiver with per-visit nursing procedures from 1,200 baht.
The question families search most is how much a home nurse costs. The question to ask first is whether your parent actually needs a nurse, because paying nurse rates for work a caregiver can do wastes tens of thousands of baht a month. This article separates the two roles and shows how to combine them.
1. Registered nurse versus caregiver
A registered nurse holds a licence from the Nursing Council and can dress pressure sores, change feeding tubes and urinary catheters, give injections, suction airways, and assess vital signs to decide whether a hospital visit is needed.
A caregiver has completed a 420-hour training course and a criminal background check, and covers daily living fully: bathing, dressing, feeding, walking support, repositioning, and fall prevention. A caregiver cannot perform nursing procedures.
The simple test: if your parent has a tube, a wound, or needs injections, a nurse must be involved, though not necessarily full time. Without those three, a caregiver is sufficient.
2. How home nursing is priced
- Daily 3,500 baht per 12-hour shift, suited to the first night home from hospital
- Weekly 22,500 baht, about 3,214 baht a day, for the transition period when the duration is still unclear
- Monthly 90,000 baht, about 3,000 baht a day, with the same nurses who know the case
- Full 24-hour cover requires two shifts; quoted case by case
Prices exclude medical treatment and supplies. Ask about travel if the home is outside Bangkok and its suburbs.
3. The cheaper route: per-visit nursing
Many families do not realise a nurse can be booked only for procedures, from 1,200 baht per visit.
- Wound care 1,200 baht per visit
- Nasogastric feeding tube change 1,600 baht per visit
- Urinary catheter change 2,200 baht per visit
The most common cost-controlled arrangement is a resident caregiver at 1,800 baht a day plus a nurse on procedure days, typically two to four visits a month. The total is far below a full-time nurse.
4. Three monthly scenarios compared
For a parent with a feeding tube changed once a month:
- Full-time nurse, 12-hour shifts: 90,000 baht per month
- Caregiver 12-hour shifts 30,000 baht plus one tube change 1,600 baht: about 31,600 baht
- Caregiver 24-hour shifts 36,000 baht plus one tube change: about 37,600 baht
The difference approaches 60,000 baht a month with identical care for the actual need. What you need is someone who assesses honestly whether a full-time nurse is really required.
5. When a full-time nurse is genuinely needed
- Frequent airway suctioning or a home ventilator
- Scheduled injections or intravenous fluids
- Severe pressure sores needing daily dressing and infection monitoring
- Unstable condition requiring vital-sign monitoring and rapid hospital decisions
- End-of-life care with pain and breathing management
In these cases a full-time nurse pays for itself, since one wrong decision can mean a hospital readmission that costs far more.
6. Questions to ask before hiring
- Is the nursing licence current, and can you see it?
- If the nurse is ill or on leave, how quickly is a replacement provided?
- What does the price include: travel, supplies, overtime?
- How and how often is the family updated?
- If the condition improves, can you switch to a caregiver without a new contract?
7. Is care at home as safe as a hospital stay? What the research says
This question sits behind every section above, and the most accurate answer is that the deciding factor is not home versus hospital, but whether that home has a system and qualified professionals overseeing the care.
A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis in the journal Gerontology pooled 11 randomised controlled trials covering 3,301 older patients, comparing conventional hospital admission with a hospital sending its own medical and nursing team to treat the patient at home. The group cared for at home had
- hospital stays 2.1 days shorter on average
- 18 percent fewer readmissions
- significantly lower total costs
- no difference in mortality or adverse events compared with staying in hospital
Limitations you should read alongside these numbers. The studies examined hospital-at-home care, where a hospital delivers ward-level treatment in the patient's home. That is not the service KIN HomeCare provides: we send registered nurses and trained caregivers to continue care at home under the treating physician's plan. Every trial included only patients whom a medical team had assessed as suitable for care at home, so the decision always remains the treating physician's. The authors themselves note very high heterogeneity between trials, that almost all were run in high-resource Western health systems, and that family caregiver burden was not measured. The findings therefore support a principle, not a guarantee of any individual patient's outcome, and they are not results from KIN HomeCare. Source: Gerontology 2026, DOI 10.1159/000551394
In practical terms, the five questions in section 6 are that system in full: who assesses the case before staff are assigned, how quickly a replacement arrives if the caregiver is unavailable, how and how often the family is updated, and where the patient can be transferred immediately if home care is no longer enough. Families who get all of those answers before hiring rarely have to change plan midway.
KIN HomeCare assesses every case free of charge before starting, tells you plainly whether a nurse or caregiver is needed, and adjusts the level as the condition changes.
Contact KIN HomeCare 061-881-9399 for elderly care, home nursing and equipment rental, 095-767-6307 for home physiotherapy · LINE @KINHOMECARE · nationwide, initial consultation free
Written by Orrathai Boontuang, RN 5311192883, branch manager, KIN Sukhumvit 107. Reviewed by Kamolchat Chokthanomsub, MD 40854. Prices reference August 2026 and may change; please confirm with our team.
This article provides general information and is not individual medical advice. Please consult a physician for personal assessment.
