CNNMoney.com || Private nurses for common folks

You may think of private nurses as a luxury for the ultra-rich, like a butler or personal chauffeur. But hiring in-house medical care has become an increasingly viable option for regular folks too.

You can use a nurse to ease the transition from hospital to home after surgery or a major illness, or even to administer chemotherapy if you want to stay out of a clinic or hospital. Visits from a private nurse can help your elderly parent remain in his or her own house safely.

Care at home can be a less expensive option than an extended stay in a nursing facility, says Kathleen Kelly, executive director of the Family Caregiver Alliance, a San Francisco nonprofit. Still, the cost can add up quickly, and you may have to cover most of it yourself. So it pays to know whether you need a nurse and how to pick one.

Know who is footing the bill

If you're under 65, chances are you're on your own; for the most part, group health insurance offers little if any coverage for private nursing care. If you are tending to an elderly relative, you will get help from Medicare, which generally pays for up to eight hours a day or 24 hours a week of care within a 60-day period.

Your relative's long-term-care insurance may also provide some coverage, usually $150 to $200 a day (which buys two to four hours of nursing care or about 10 hours of an aide's time). Review the policy before you bring someone onboard.

Make sure a nurse is necessary

You'll pay three times as much for a nurse as for an aide (see table), so consider what care you need. If you're recovering at home from major surgery, you will likely need the services of a registered nurse (R.N.), who can do everything that a nurse in a hospital might do, from monitoring vital signs such as pulse and blood pressure to dressing wounds and setting up an intravenous catheter for drug treatments.