Workers' Comp Rates for Home Health Care Services (Class Code 8835)

What's Included Under Class Code 8835

NCCI assigns 8835 to public and private enterprises engaged in furnishing healthcare services in the homes of individual patients. The employees rendering those services include registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, certified nursing aides, social workers, physical/occupational/speech therapists, and home health aides. Typical duties are administering medications, intravenous therapy and injections, wound care, checking vital signs, delivering physical therapy, and patient education and counseling. Personal-care and homemaker/companion services provided as part of a home-care agency's operation, hospice care delivered in the home, and high-tech home care such as IV infusion are contemplated by the classification.

Because 8835 is an "all employees" classification, field caregivers and the support staff attached to the home-care operation are usually reported together. The location of the care — not the job title — is the deciding factor: an RN doing IV therapy in a patient's living room is 8835, while the same RN working a hospital floor is not. Drivers and the mileage caregivers log between visits are part of the 8835 exposure, which is one reason its rate runs above clinic-based codes.

8835 vs 8829, 8833, and 9040 — Home Care vs Facility Care

The most common boundary dispute is 8835 versus 8829 Nursing Home — All Employees. 8829 covers convalescent and nursing-home employees who provide intensive care on a facility basis, with different regulations, staffing, and safety protocols than home visits. If the employer owns or operates the building where care is delivered, the work is facility-based and does not belong in 8835; if caregivers travel to patients' residences, it does. An agency that runs both an in-home division and a residential facility may need to divide payroll between 8835 and 8829.

Hospital-based care is separated again: 8833 Hospital — Professional Employees covers nurses, technicians, and other professional staff inside a hospital, while 9040 Hospital — All Other Employees picks up the non-professional hospital workforce. Physician-office clinical and clerical staff rate to 8832 Physician & Clerical. None of these absorb home visits — the moment care moves into the patient's home, 8835 governs. Independent-bureau and state-exception states use their own phraseology: NCCI marks 8835 not applicable in California, New York, and Texas, while New Jersey (NJCRIB) files 8835 as "Nursing — Home Health, Public and Traveling," so operators in those states should confirm the local classification rather than rely on a national 8835 label.

8835 Workers' Comp Rate Range by State (2026)

For a home health agency shopping coverage in 2026, the useful comparison is not a single national number but the state spread. Using the site's published base-rate model for class code 8835, the low end clusters around Indiana ($3.24 per $100 of payroll), Texas ($3.40), Virginia ($3.44), Utah ($3.53), Arkansas ($3.65), and Colorado ($3.69). The high end is New York ($6.02), Alaska ($5.89), California ($5.60), New Jersey ($5.40), Pennsylvania ($5.31), and Hawaii ($5.31). Those figures are filing-based benchmarks for comparison; a carrier quote still changes after payroll, loss-cost multiplier, experience mod, schedule credits, minimum premium, and any state-specific classification rule.

The reason 8835 swings more than low-risk office codes is the exposure profile. Home caregivers work in private residences instead of controlled clinical buildings, travel between visits, and may lift or transfer patients without the same equipment found in a facility. That is why the 8835 rate table belongs closer to healthcare field-service and nursing-home comparisons than to clerical or physician-office comparisons.

Audit Records for 8835 Home Health Care

The audit file that protects an 8835 assignment documents that care is delivered in patients' homes rather than in a facility the employer controls. Keep visit logs or scheduling records showing in-home service, payroll detail for caregiving staff, and — if the company also operates a facility — a clean split of facility payroll to 8829. Whether an agency's office-only clerical staff can be separately rated to 8810 Clerical Office Employees instead of being absorbed into the 8835 "all employees" payroll depends on the rules of the governing state bureau, so confirm the state's standard-exception treatment before assuming a clerical split.

Driving exposure deserves its own records. Caregivers logging miles between patients is a core part of the 8835 hazard, and mixing 8835 home-care driving with separately rated delivery or transport work — such as 7711 EMT/Paramedics ambulance operations — invites audit reclassification. Track payroll and duties by role so each worker maps to the correct classification.

For quote shoppers, the rate table on this page is a benchmark, not a binding quote. The filed base-rate estimate still changes after payroll, the carrier's loss-cost multiplier, the employer's experience modification factor, schedule credits, minimum premium, and any reclassification to a facility code or a state-specific home-healthcare classification.