What is Home Health Care?
Home health care is a wide range of medically based services provided in your home. Home health care can be utilized following an illness or injury, or for additional training such as medication compliance or diabetic care for someone who is considered homebound.
Home health care is usually a covered insurance benefit, whereas companion, or home care is a private pay option. Home health care is convenient and can help you recover more quickly and retain your independence.
How do I start the process?
A referral, via a doctor’s order, is needed to start care. These are the ways you can get the process started:
Contact your physician, have a face to face doctor visit, and request home health services be provided by Sequoia Home Health
If you or a loved one is discharging from a hospital or skilled nursing facility, the discharge planner or social services director often implements home health care services. If the qualifications below are met, you can also request services from Sequoia Home Health
Fill out the referral form, and our Business Development Manager will be in touch with you to facilitate home health services
What happens next?
Once we receive the referral for home health services, and verify insurance information, the intake coordinator with Sequoia Home Health will call you or your responsible party to schedule a clinician visit at your home to discuss your needs and find out more information about your current health situation.
Our experienced skilled home health care professionals will collaborate with you and your physician to create a plan of care based on your individual needs. You will be fully involved in every aspect of your care and will be a part of the integral care needs designed just for you.
What can the home health care staff do?
Aside from adhering to the orders prescribed by the doctor, Sequoia Home Health clinicians will:
Check what you’re eating and drinking.
Check your blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, and breathing.
Ensure that you’re taking your prescription and other drugs and any treatments correctly.
Ask if you’re having pain.
Check for proper home safety.
Provide education for your care so that you can continue to properly care for yourself.
Stay in regular communication with anyone involved in providing you care including you, your doctor, and anyone else who provides care for you.
How do I qualify for home health care?
Medicare and other health insurances will pay for home health care services if you qualify. If you have Medicare, you can use your home health care benefits if you meet all the following conditions:
1. You must be under the care of a doctor, and you must be getting services under a plan of care established and reviewed regularly by a doctor.
2. You must need, and a doctor must certify that you need, one or more of the following:
Intermittent skilled nursing care
Physical therapy
Speech-language pathology services
Continued occupational therapy
3. The home health agency caring for you must be approved by Medicare (Medicare-certified).
4. You must be homebound, and a doctor must certify that you’re homebound.
To be homebound means the following:
Leaving your home isn’t recommended because of your condition.
Your condition keeps you from leaving home without help (such as using a wheelchair or walker, needing special transportation, or getting help from another person).
Leaving home takes a considerable and taxing effort.
A person may leave home for medical treatment or short, infrequent absences for non-medical reasons, such as attending religious services. You can still get home health care if you attend adult day care, but you would get the home care services in your home.