Florida Medicaid private duty nursing rates are notable less for their level than for their uniformity. Florida pays $8.16 per 15 minutes for RN private duty nursing on code T1000, or $32.64 an hour, rank 35 of 43 states and 40.5% below the national median of $54.84. It pays exactly the same $32.64 an hour for RN waiver nursing on T1002, which ranks 40 of 41 states, second from the bottom nationally.
In most states the waiver side of in-home nursing pays more than the state plan side. Florida pays one RN rate and one LPN rate across both, which means a Florida agency gets no premium for waiver hours and has to win on operations, staffing mix and authorization discipline instead.
All four Florida nursing rates took effect July 1, 2026, and they reduce to two figures.
| Service | Code | Per 15 min | Per hour | Rank | vs median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private duty nursing, RN | T1000 UC, HN | $8.16 | $32.64 | 35 of 43 | -40.5% |
| Private duty nursing, LPN | T1000 UC | $7.09 | $28.36 | 28 of 39 | -35.7% |
| Waiver nursing, RN | T1002 UC | $8.16 | $32.64 | 40 of 41 | -57.9% |
| Waiver nursing, LPN | T1001 UC | $7.09 | $28.36 | 30 of 34 | -49.7% |
On the state plan, Florida distinguishes RN from LPN care on the same code, T1000, using the HN modifier on the RN line. The waiver side uses T1002 for RN care and T1001 for LPN care, at the same amounts.
The identical figures produce very different ranks. Against other states' state plan rates, Florida sits in the lower third. Against other states' waiver rates, which run higher at the median, the same dollars put Florida near the very bottom: only Arkansas, at $19.08, pays less for RN waiver nursing.
The reason is that most states treat waiver nursing as a separately priced service, often with a higher rate to reflect scattered home visits and more complex documentation. The national waiver RN median is $77.60, well above the private duty RN median of $54.84. Florida has chosen a single price for licensed nursing in the home regardless of funding stream, so its waiver rank falls further than its state plan rank. For an agency, the practical effect is simple: there is no rate reason to prefer one Florida program over the other, so case selection should rest on authorization terms, hours and patient acuity.
Florida bills in-home nursing in 15-minute units. Four units make an hour, so the $8.16 RN unit is $32.64 an hour and the $7.09 LPN unit is $28.36. Every comparison on this page is stated per hour so that Florida lines up with states that publish hourly rates.
UC and HN on the same code
Because RN and LPN care share T1000, the modifier is what separates a $32.64 hour from a $28.36 hour. A claim that drops the HN modifier is priced at the LPN level. Billing teams should build the modifier into each nurse's credential profile in their scheduling software so the correct level flows onto every claim without manual entry.
Waiver codes use separate levels
On the waiver side, RN and LPN care sit on different codes, T1002 and T1001, each with the UC modifier. Agencies that serve both state plan and waiver patients therefore run two coding patterns for the same nurse, and audits most often catch errors where a nurse moves between cases in one week.
Florida publishes a dedicated Private Duty Nursing Services Fee Schedule, and two recent editions raised rates:
- The edition effective July 1, 2022 raised rates by 3.33%.
- The edition effective October 1, 2024 raised rates by 7.18%.
Between those editions, the SFY 2022-23 General Appropriations Act funded Medicaid provider fee-schedule increases tied to a $15 minimum wage, with a pass-through to SMMC plans, effective October 1, 2022. The current figures took effect July 1, 2026.
Those raises lifted Florida's rates, but not enough to bring them near the national middle. The pattern matters for planning: Florida's increases have arrived through new fee schedule editions and appropriations, often on July 1 or October 1, so agencies should review each new edition and each year's General Appropriations Act rather than assume an annual inflation adjustment.
Florida nurse wages sit below the national level: the state median is $40.48 an hour for registered nurses, against $46.90 nationally, and $29.70 for licensed practical nurses, against $30.96.
Even with lower wages, the rates do not cover a median-wage nurse once employer costs are loaded:
- RN private duty and waiver nursing: the loaded RN wage equals 176.3% of the $32.64 rate, a margin of -$24.89 an hour.
- LPN private duty and waiver nursing: the loaded LPN wage equals 148.8% of the $28.36 rate, a margin of -$13.85 an hour.
Because the rates match across programs, the margins match too.
The margin figures point toward LPN-led staffing wherever a patient's plan of care allows it. The LPN line loses less per hour, and the gap between the two lines is driven mostly by the wage difference rather than the rate difference.
Agencies that remain viable at these rates tend to share a few habits. They match RN time to the tasks that legally require an RN, such as assessments and supervision. They recruit nurses who value schedule stability, since long pediatric cases offer predictable hours. And they keep travel between homes short by building cases in tight geographic clusters. None of these changes the rate, but each changes how much of the rate is left after payroll.
Florida attaches limits and authorization rules to its in-home nursing codes more heavily than most states:
- T1000: 10 prior authorization rules, with a yearly limit.
- T1001: 14 prior authorization rules, with a yearly limit.
- T1002: 6 prior authorization rules, with a daily limit.
- S9123, S9124 and T1003: no rules listed.
For agencies, the yearly limits on T1000 and T1001 mean a long-running pediatric case needs its authorized hours tracked against the year, not just the week. The daily limit on T1002 works differently: it caps what can be billed for one patient on one day, so a double shift or a holiday fill-in needs to be checked against the cap before it is scheduled. A shared tracker that shows units authorized, used and remaining for each patient is the simplest guard against unpaid hours.
Florida classifies private duty nursing as paid directly by the state, outside managed care. The same rule applies to home and community-based services, personal care and intellectual and developmental disability services. For a private duty nursing agency, that means the fee schedule rate is the rate: there is no plan-by-plan negotiation for these hours.
That differs from home health, where Florida's rule is that plans negotiate and the published rate applies out of network. Agencies that run both a home health line and a private duty line should keep the two contracting models separate. Florida names 46 plans, including the regional long-term care contracts of Florida Community Care, and the SFY 2022-23 appropriation included an SMMC pass-through for its fee-schedule increases. The Florida managed-care page lists the rule for each line.
Beyond Florida Medicaid fee-for-service, Florida's listed programs include the iBudget waiver for people with developmental disabilities, run by APD, and the Familial Dysautonomia 1915(c) waiver. APD published iBudget Waiver Rate Changes effective July 1, 2026, the same date as the current nursing rates. Florida also publishes a separate Prescribed Pediatric Extended Care Services Fee Schedule, with an edition effective July 1, 2026; for medically complex children, extended care centers are an alternative setting to in-home nursing, and families sometimes use both. Agencies serving children should know which setting a family's authorization covers.
At the top of RN private duty nursing, Utah pays $254.03 an hour, Massachusetts $130.64 and Georgia $95.36. At the bottom are Virginia at $25.86, New Jersey at $15.75 and Oklahoma at $8.92. Florida's $32.64 sits closer to that bottom group than to the median.
On waiver nursing, Georgia leads RN care at $146.72. Florida's identical $32.64 sits just above Arkansas and just below North Carolina at $34.88. For agencies near the Georgia line, the contrast with a neighboring state is stark and affects recruiting: nurses can see that the same work pays far more across the border.
- Budget one rate per level. Because state plan and waiver pay the same, a Florida budget can use a single RN and a single LPN hourly figure, which simplifies forecasting.
- Plan around the authorization year. The yearly limits on T1000 and T1001 make annual hour tracking more important than weekly scheduling.
- Do not plan on plan negotiation. With private duty nursing paid outside managed care, revenue growth comes from hours delivered and staffing mix, not contract terms.
- Watch new editions. Read each new Private Duty Nursing Services Fee Schedule edition when it is released; the 7.18% increase in 2024 shows how much a single edition can move.
Because Florida pays one rate per nurse level regardless of program, the decision to accept a case rests on other factors. A short intake checklist helps:
- Which code and modifier does the authorization name? T1000 with HN, T1000 alone, T1002 or T1001 each carry a specific level and limit.
- How many hours are authorized, and against which limit? Yearly limits on T1000 and T1001 and a daily limit on T1002 change how a schedule can be built.
- Can the plan of care be met with LPN hours? At the median wage, LPN hours lose less per hour than RN hours.
- Where does the patient live relative to available nurses? Travel time is unpaid and erodes an already negative margin.
- Is the family also using extended care center services? Coordinating schedules avoids gaps and overlapping authorizations.
Agencies that answer these questions before the first shift avoid the most common losses in Florida home nursing: hours delivered beyond a limit, shifts billed at the wrong level, and cases that cannot be staffed consistently.
Rates on this page are compiled from official state Medicaid publications, and every rate links to its source document. For Florida, the main source for this service line is the Private Duty Nursing Services Fee Schedule published by AHCA, along with the SFY 2022-23 General Appropriations Act. The Florida Medicaid rates page lists all 41,202 current Florida rates with links to their sources.
Rankings compare each state's rate per hour for the same service and provider level. Our methodology explains how 15-minute units become hourly comparisons, the national private duty nursing rankings compare every state, and pricing covers full access to rate history and source links.