In Home Care 101

Most phone calls we receive are from people who have never had never needed any type of in home care before and don't know what is out there.

From this initial conversation I have a quick talk of what I call "In-Home Care 101", or the basics. There is a very common misconception out there that Medicaid will pay for in home care. Medicare will pay for some things, but extended care is not one of them.

So here it is, a very simple and short explanation: In Home Care 101

First off, Medicare will pay for SKILLED NURSING only. You need a physician order to qualify for all skilled nursing/Medicare services.

Think of skilled nursing as task oriented; a nurse will come out to the home and perform some sort of task (E.g. bath, med set up, wound dressing, physical therapy). Once they are finished with that task, they leave.

The two main services for medicaid skilled nursing is 1. Home Health and 2. Hospice.

Here is a blog from a home health agency that explains Home Heath in further detail. 

&     Here is a article that explains Hospice in further detail.


For many people skilled nursing is not enough and they need caregivers to come out and help with their loved one for longer period of time. This brings us to In Home care; you can think of it more as time oriented rather than task oriented services.

This is the type of services that Comfort of Home Healthcare provides. We can go in and provide what is called ADL's or activity of daily living. We come in and do some of the same services such as bathing and medications etc, but we can also do some of the other tasks that your loved one can no longer do themselves such as toileting, cooking, cleaning, etc.

These services range anywhere from 3 hours a couple times a week, all the way to 24 hours, 7 days a week.

Unfortunately Medicare does NOT pay for these type of services. However Medicaid will pay for some of these services.

Since Medicaid is income based, most of our phone calls do not qualify. This leaves families to pay out of pocket for in home care services.

If your loved one was a veteran or the widow of a veteran there might be some assistance from the VA, but that is about it. There are some other assistance but too few would qualify to put in this post.

This all can get very confusing. If you need any further assistance or have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact our office. We are more than happy to answer any questions you might have.