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Home Care is a broad term that describes a range of health and social services. These services are delivered at home to recovering, disabled, chronically or terminally ill persons in need of medical, nursing, social, or therapeutic treatment and/or support and assistance with the essential activities of daily living.
Generally, home care is appropriate whenever a person prefers to stay at home but needs care that cannot easily or effectively be provided solely by family and friends. More and more older people, electing to live independent, non-institutionalized lives, are receiving home care services as their physical capabilities diminish. Younger adults who are disabled or recuperating from acute illness are choosing home care whenever possible. Chronically ill infants and children are receiving sophisticated medical treatment in their loving and secure home environments. Adults and children diagnosed with terminal illness also are being cared for at home, receiving compassionate care and maintaining dignity at the end of life. As hospital stays decrease, increasing numbers of patients need highly skilled services when they return home. Other patients are able to avoid institutionalization altogether, receiving safe and effective care in the comfort of their own homes.
Hospice is a major type of home care that provides care and support for persons in the last phases of incurable disease so they may live as fully and comfortably as possibly. Hospice recognizes dying as part of the normal process of living and focuses on maintaining the quality of remaining life. Coverage includes drugs, medical and support services from a Medicare-approved hospice, another services not otherwise covered by Medicare (like grief counseling) for terminal and related conditions.
Hospice is not only caring for the terminally ill, but also a philosophy that affirms life, dignity, and choice until the end. Although some hospice services may be provided in a facility (hospital, skilled nursing facility (SNF), or inpatient hospice facility) most services are provided in the patient's home. Medicare covers some short-term inpatient stays (for pain and symptom management) and inpatient respite care (care given to a hospice patient so that the usual caregiver can rest).
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