Home Health Agency
Home Health Agencies Get Listed Here
What are Home Health Agencies?
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
A home health agency provides home care services from a licensed and most often Medicare certified facility that accepts 3rd party billing of health insurance. Medicare certification assures that the agency has actually met specific guidelines that are set forth federally regarding the care that these agencies and the home care providers who work under them provide. Home health agencies employ or contract services out to nurses, home health aides, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, physicians and various other medical professionals to provide care for individuals in their homes.
The primary purpose of a home health agency is to provide skilled care or rehabilitation services to patients who live at home. Such care may include occupational therapy that can help them to regain control of certain bodily functions so that they can remain independent, palliative care or hospice care for cancer patients during the final stages of life, or routine day to day activities such as shopping, cooking or cleaning which the individual otherwise could not perform on their own.
Because most home care agencies are Medicare certified, the level and criteria for the care that they provide to patients must strictly adhere to a physician approved plan of care. Additionally, the plan must be approved by the physician as medically necessary and it must be updated every 60 days in order for Medicare to continue to cover the cost of the home health agency services.
Home health agencies focus on skilled medical care more so than home health care providers which provide more of a means of support and homemaking type care. Many home health agencies do also provide home health aides that can help with shopping, meal preparation, cleaning and various other day to day activities. Home health agencies provide a specific amount or level of care to patients who could otherwise not live at home without such care.
Many home health agencies also offer various private pay options for those who require home health care beyond the scope of Medicare or a third party insurance company. The care provided under such a contract is non-certified meaning it is not paid for by Medicare and does not require the preapproval from a physician. This type of care provided by home health agencies features nursing assistants who will continue to provide the individual with personal care and other non-medical based care.