CHCPE: the Connecticut Home Care Program for Elders
A real door, and a slow one. Here is what it covers and what it asks of you.
- Age floor
- 65+
- Applicants must be 65 or older.
- Residency
- CT
- A Connecticut resident.
- State-funded copay
- 9%
- Paid by clients on the state-funded portion.
- Statute
- P.A. 15-5
- The copay took effect July 1, 2015.
The Connecticut Home Care Program for Elders, CHCPE, is the state program that helps eligible clients continue living at home instead of going to a nursing home.
Endurance does not accept Medicare, Medicaid or VA benefits as payment. Care is paid for privately, or reimbursed to the household by a long term care insurance policy. This page is here for information.
What the program is for
CHCPE is run through the Connecticut Department of Social Services, and the whole point of it is the fork below. It exists so that a person who would otherwise be placed in a nursing home can keep the address they already have. That is why the eligibility tests read the way they do, and why one of them is about risk rather than a condition.
At home
The outcome the program is built to make possible.
Nursing home placement
The outcome an applicant has to be at risk of before the program applies.
CHCPE is one route among several, and most households end up combining two or three. The full set is laid out in our guide to pay for home care in Connecticut, all options.
Four tests, and the third is the one families misread.
- Age
- 65 OR OLDER
- Residence
- CT RESIDENT
- Need
- AT RISK
- Finances
- DSS CRITERIA
To be eligible, an applicant must be 65 or older, be a Connecticut resident, be at risk of nursing home placement, and meet the program’s financial eligibility criteria. The first two are documents. The fourth is the state’s arithmetic. The third is the one worth reading twice.
Being at risk of nursing home placement means needing assistance with critical needs such as bathing, dressing, eating, taking medications, and toileting. It is a description of an ordinary day going wrong in specific places, not a label anyone hands out. Families often assume they are far from that line when the daily list already says otherwise, and just as often assume they have cleared it when the state will read the file differently. Only the Department of Social Services decides, and it decides on the file in front of it.
Endurance Home Care provides care at home in Connecticut and New Jersey, with companion care only in New York. Skilled nursing, home health aides and physical therapy in Connecticut are provided by Endurance Home Health. Client Support Line (203) 936-6847.
What CHCPE can cover
Services may include care management, adult day health, companion services, home delivered meals, and homemaker services. What any one household is authorized for is set inside the program, not chosen from a menu, and the two categories at the bottom of this list are the ones that overlap what a registered agency already does.
Care management
A Care Manager holds the plan and coordinates what the program authorizes.
Adult day health
Days spent at a program site rather than alone in the house.
Companion services
Company, conversation, and somebody in the house during the hours that are hardest to cover.
Home delivered meals
Meals brought to the door on a schedule.
Homemaker services
The house side of staying home: laundry, light housekeeping, a usable kitchen.
Two things to know before you apply
Neither is a reason to skip the application. Both change what a household plans around while the paperwork is moving.
01
Can a relative be paid for the hours they are already covering?
Almost never. Family members are not eligible to be paid as personal care attendants for relatives, with very rare exceptions. So the hours a daughter or a spouse is already covering stay unpaid, and the program’s paid hours go to somebody brought in. If that answer sends you looking at other funding, the nearest comparisons are Medicare's home care rules and veterans benefits that fund home care hours.
02
Is being on the program free?
Not on the state-funded side. Since July 1, 2015, clients on the state-funded portion of CHCPE are required to pay a 9 percent copay under Public Act 15-5, and the financial eligibility criteria apply on the way in as well. Nine percent of an authorized care plan is a smaller number than a private schedule, and it is not zero. Budget for it from the start rather than meeting it after approval.
The program, and an agency alongside it
Two of the categories CHCPE names, companion services and homemaker services, are the same work a Connecticut Homemaker Companion Agency is registered to provide. That overlap is why the two get confused, and the difference is worth stating plainly.
CHCPE
Endurance Home Care
The Connecticut Department of Social Services.
A private agency holding CT Connecticut License HCA.0002450.
An application to the program, decided by the state.
A phone call, then a schedule you set.
Eligibility, and which categories are authorized.
Nothing about eligibility. The agency has no part in that decision.
Categories including companion services and homemaker services.
daily-living support, coordination, reminders, and accompaniment.
The file moves at the program's pace.
Hours can be arranged privately in the meantime.
Connecticut License HCA.0002450 · New Jersey License HP0435100 · Connecticut DPH License 9915786 (Endurance Home Health). Endurance Home Care provides care at home in Connecticut and New Jersey, with companion care only in New York. Skilled nursing, home health aides and physical therapy in Connecticut are provided by Endurance Home Health. If the household needs somebody in the house this month across Fairfield County or New Haven County, the honest sequence is to apply to the program and start with a free consultation in parallel, so the weeks in between are covered rather than counted.
Questions families ask
chcpe connecticut
CHCPE is the Connecticut Home Care Program for Elders, run through the Department of Social Services to help eligible clients continue living at home instead of going to a nursing home. Applicants must be 65 or older, Connecticut residents, at risk of nursing home placement, and meet the program's financial criteria. Covered services can include care management, adult day health, companion services, home delivered meals, and homemaker services.
Does CHCPE pay family members to provide care?
Not except in very rare cases. The program states family members are not eligible to be paid as personal care attendants for relatives, with very rare exceptions. Families usually combine informal family help with paid hours from a registered homemaker companion agency.
Is there a cost to be on CHCPE?
For the state-funded portion, yes. Since July 1, 2015, clients on the state-funded portion of CHCPE are required to pay a 9 percent copay under Public Act 15-5. The program's financial eligibility criteria also apply when you enroll.
Apply to the program. Cover the weeks in between.
Home care across Fairfield and New Haven counties, from an agency registered with the state of Connecticut.
Call (203) 936-6847