New York · Checked October 22, 2026
Your license is the Licensed Home Care Services Agency (LHCSA) License, issued by New York State Department of Health.
Checked in part. $2,000 fee and the ≥5-agency presumption of no need are verified on DOH's own FAQ. PARTIAL/CONFLICT: the codified PHL §3605 text in some current printings no longer lists public need in subdivision 4 while DOH's FAQ still applies the need methodology — this conflict is printed in the gates cell rather than resolved. No renewal fee or timeline is published by DOH, so those cells are null/descriptive. Anything the state does not publish is printed as "Not published" below — never filled from blogs or consultancy tables. Confirm on the agency page before you budget.
| Item | New York |
|---|---|
| License / registration | Licensed Home Care Services Agency (LHCSA) License |
| Issued by | New York State Department of Health — official page |
| Application / initial fee | $2,000 — Application fee of $2,000 required with the LHCSA licensure application, per Public Health Law §§3605(13) and 361-a(3) and the DOH application FAQ. Not returned by the state once the application is acknowledged. Applications are filed electronically through NYSE-CON. |
| Renewal | DOH does not publish a recurring LHCSA renewal fee in its licensure FAQ; the $2,000 figure is the application fee (initial licensure, change of ownership, or expansion of a restricted license). No renewal amount is printed here because the state does not publish one in the sources checked. |
| Surety bond | No state bond minimum found in the published rules |
| Liability insurance | State sets no minimum |
| Timeline | No statutory processing deadline is published. Per DOH's FAQ, applications are reviewed in the order acknowledged in NYSE-CON, then go to the Public Health and Health Planning Council (PHHPC), which meets roughly every two months; after contingent approval the applicant submits a policy-and-procedure manual to the regional office and must pass a pre-opening survey before the license issues. |
| Administrator | No individual administrator credential is set in PHL §3605. Instead the PHHPC must be satisfied as to the character, competence and standing in the community of the applicant's incorporators, directors, stockholders and operators, and as to the agency's financial resources/feasibility. |
| State extras | Application preparation through NYSE-CON is document-heavy, including Schedule 2D compliance reports for affiliated out-of-state facilities, which the applicant must obtain from those states before filing (DOH FAQ). |
| Service | Under this license |
|---|---|
| Companionship & supervision | Covered |
| Homemaker help | Covered |
| Hands-on personal care | Covered |
| Live-in / 24-hour care | Not covered by this license |
| Transportation | Not covered by this license |
| Skilled nursing or therapy | Home health license + a gate (see below) |
An LHCSA is authorized to provide nursing services, home health aide services and personal care services (PHL §3605). Pure companionship/housekeeping is delivered as part of personal care; the license is the route for hands-on personal care in New York — there is no lighter registration tier for an agency employing aides to do personal care.
An LHCSA license itself authorizes nursing and home health aide services, but it is NOT Medicare/Medicaid-certified home health. The certified lane — a Certified Home Health Agency (CHHA) under PHL §3608 — is separate and gated by certificate-of-need review. LHCSAs that are not certified cannot participate as home health agencies under Medicare/Medicaid Titles XVIII/XIX, except through contracts with state/local agencies or managed care / managed long-term care plans (PHL §3605).
Public-need test for new LHCSAs: under DOH's public need methodology (applications on/after April 1, 2020), if 5 or more LHCSAs are actively serving patients in a county, there is a presumption of NO need, and the applicant must submit evidence-based data to overcome it for each such county. DOH's FAQ applies this presumption today. NOTE: some current codified printings of PHL §3605 show the public-need criterion removed from subdivision 4 — the statute text and DOH's operating methodology conflict in the sources checked on 2026-10-22, so treat the need test as live DOH practice but flag it for re-verification before launch.
Enroll as a New York Medicaid provider (eMedNY) and contract with Managed Long Term Care plans and/or county local departments of social services, which authorize personal care hours. The consumer-directed lane (CDPAP) now runs through a single statewide fiscal intermediary, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), with hours logged in its Time4Care system.
New York uses a provider-choice EVV model: agencies choose an EVV system that submits to the New York State EVV Data Aggregator, for Medicaid personal care services including CDPAP.
The state fee above is one line of the real total. Run the true-cost calculator with New York selected — it adds the bond premium, insurance class, screening and the payroll runway your first hires create.
This page is information, not legal advice. Confirm before you file: the agency — not this page — decides your application.
The free checkers give you the verdict and the number. The Kit gives you the working papers: your state's application packet walked through in filing order, the policies-and-procedures binder spec (what your binder must contain — never a boilerplate binder), the administrator self-audit, the insurance & bond spec sheet, the Medicaid gate map, the franchise-vs-independent 10-year worksheets, and the payroll-runway planner.
$49 one-time payment
Included in the $49 HomeCareLicenseCheck Kit
