What’s The Difference Between Home Health Care and In Home Care?
When looking for caregiving for yourself, a family member or friend it’s important to know the difference between these two types of caregiving services.
With a Medical Home Health Care Agency a client can receive both medical and non-medical in their personal home or they may be offered in an alternative residential setting. These types of agencies or residential settings provide services for individuals that are recovering from an illness or injury, disabled and or suffering from a chronic illness. Sometimes this care is referred to as Hospice Care if the individual is suffering from a terminal condition. They often provide medical services such as pain management to individuals and are typically staffed by nurse practitioners or registered nurses.
Alternatively Non-Medical Home Care providers, like Caring Companions at Home, provide in home care, personal caregiving services, companion services and driving services. Furthermore, these include arranging medical appoints, errands, laundry, meal preparation, bathing and showering assistance, nighttime care and much more.
Since these services are non-medical, they do not need to be performed by a nurse practitioner or registered nurse. However, our caregivers are licensed through the State of California and called home care aides. We also have Certified Nurses Assistants, Certified Home Health Aides, and retired LVN's and RN's employed as caregivers.
You, your family member or friend may need a combination of both the medical-based home care/facility provided services and in-home care that is non-medical. For example, if you or your loved one have just had a major surgery that requires medical attention on an outpatient basis such as injections, medical tests, wound care and monitoring/reporting of health status, the service to start with would be home health care. If after a few weeks, you or your loved one is doing better and no longer requires these procedures, yet needs help with shopping, getting to doctors appointments, help around the house or just companion services like walking outside and playing board games, then non-medical home care is the service to engage. These services are very beneficial on an ongoing long-term basis to improve a person’s quality of life, health and safety!
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