What is Home Care?
Home care, also known as home health care and home support services,Home health care is a wide range of health care services that can be given in your home for an illness or injury. Home health care is usually less expensive, more convenient, and just as effective as care you get in a hospital or skilled nursing facility (SNF).
Examples of skilled home health services include:
- Wound care for pressure sores or a surgical wound
- Patient and caregiver education
- Intravenous or nutrition therapy
- Injections
- Monitoring serious illness and unstable health status
The goal of home health care is to treat an illness or injury. Home health care helps you get better, regain your independence, and become as self-sufficient as possible.
What should you expect from home health care?
- Doctor’s orders are needed to start care. Once your doctor refers you for home health services, We will schedule an appointment and come to your home to talk to you about your needs and ask you some questions about your health.
- Our staff will also talk to your doctor about your care and keep your doctor updated about your progress.
- It’s important that home health staff see you as often as the doctor ordered.
Examples of what the home health staff should do include:
- Check what you’re eating and drinking.
- Check your blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, and breathing.
- Check that you’re taking your prescription and other drugs and any treatments correctly.
- Ask if you’re having pain.
- Check your safety in the home.
- Teach you about your care so you can take care of yourself.
- Coordinate your care. This means they must communicate regularly with you, your doctor, and anyone else who gives you care.
Who is Eligible for Medicare Home Health Care?
To be eligible for Medicare covered home health care, you must meet the following criteria:
- You must be under a physician’s care and the physician must order the services.
- You must require a skilled, intermittent service such as ; skilled nursing care, physical therapy, or speech therapy.
- You must be homebound due to an illness or injury which makes it difficult for you to leave home in order to receiver medical care.
If you feel that you or a loved one may benefit from home health, we are only a phone call away. A member of our experienced staff can work with you and your physician to determine if home health is right for you.
What is Homebound?
Medicare considers a patient to be homebound if “leaving the home would require a considerable and taxing effort,” and if “he/she has a condition due to an illness or injury which restricts his/her ability to leave his/her place of residence except with the aid of supportive devices such as crutches, canes, wheel chairs and walkers, [with] the use of special transportation, or the assistance of another person, or if leaving the home is medically contraindicated.” Homebound patients may leave the home “if the absences are undertaken on an infrequent basis or are relatively short duration...or for the purpose of receiving medical treatment.”
Who chooses which home health agency to use?
You do, in consultation with your physician. According to Medicare, "a patient is free to choose any qualified agency offering him/her services."
Is Durable Medical Equipment provided?
Yes. Arrangement for these services will be made for the special needs of the patient and in most cases are covered by Medicare. For example: commodes, wheelchairs, crutches, hospital beds and I.V. equipment.
Patient Rights
It is important that individuals receiving home care are aware of their rights and responsibilities associated with receiving home healthcare. Ferderal law obligates home care agencies to inform patients of their rights and responsibilities before care is provided. The law guarantees an individual receiving homecare the right to participate in the healthcare decisions that directly affect them and the responsibilities the individual accepts in paticipating in these decisions.
