Types Of Home Care Agencies

When someone you love needs extra help around the house, you want to make sure that the people in charge are the most beneficial to your loved one. With all the different types of home care agencies, it is confusing as to what each one offers and which provides the best type of care. Here is a simple guide to those different types.

Type one - the home health agency

This type of home care is the oldest and most common. It involves skilled health care providers taking care of the medical needs of a patient. This type of assistant is usually Medicare certified and as such must adhere to very strict guidelines set forth by the overseeing physician. Everything is reviewed every 60 days to ensure that all guidelines are being followed and performed.

Type two - home care agency

This agency is also called a Non-Medical Home Care Agency. This involves taking care of the needs of a patient but is not considered skilled care. This means that the person providing the care cannot perform medical services but performs daily tasks such as cooking, cleaning, helping a patient use the bathroom and other essential tasks that a patients cannot perform for themselves.

Type three - staffing agency

This agency performs more of a service than actual home care. They connect patients with individual home care providers, matches the needs of the patient to the services performed by an independent contractor and then collects a finders fee. This type of agency is useful in finding the exact type of care a patient needs but tends to be more expensive.

All of these agencies look to serve the patient as best they can; however, which type of need depends greatly on the needs of patient, and is determined by the attending physician.

Skilled health care providers take care of the medical needs of a patient

by Lance Pincock, Medical writer