Skilled Nursing Offering
Expertise and Compassion

Clinical care that requires a licensed nurse: wound care, injections, IV therapy, catheter and ostomy care, medication management, vital sign monitoring, and teaching patients and families to manage a condition at home.

The nurse also assesses whether the plan is working and reports back to the physician. That reporting loop is the part families underestimate. A nurse who sees the patient weekly catches the deterioration that a physician seeing them quarterly cannot.

Medicare covers home health when a physician certifies that you need intermittent skilled nursing or therapy, you are under a physician-established plan of care, and you are homebound.

Homebound does not mean bedbound, and this is where most families wrongly rule themselves out. The test is whether leaving home takes a considerable and taxing effort, not whether it is impossible.

Medicare’s test has two parts. You must need supportive devices such as a walker, cane or wheelchair, special transportation, or another person’s help to leave home, or have a condition making it medically contraindicated. And leaving must require a considerable and taxing effort.

Absences do not automatically disqualify you. A patient may still be considered homebound if absences are infrequent or are to receive health care treatment, such as attendance at adult day care, outpatient dialysis, or outpatient chemotherapy or radiation.

No. Medicare does not require copayments or a deductible for covered home health services.

Health at Home is Medicare certified under provider number 109058 in Boynton Beach and 109028 in Port St. Lucie. If you qualify and use a certified agency, the covered visits carry no out-of-pocket cost to the patient.

Yes, for Medicare-certified skilled nursing. A physician must order the care and certify the homebound status, and the referral usually comes from a hospital, rehab facility or physician’s office.

Private duty nursing is the alternative when the need does not fit those criteria. It requires no physician order, it is not limited to intermittent visits, and it is private pay. Many families who are told they do not qualify for Medicare home health still have the option.

Medicare home health is intermittent by design, so visits are scheduled rather than continuous, typically one to three times a week depending on the plan of care.

If you need a nurse present for longer stretches, that is private duty nursing and it is arranged separately. The two are frequently combined, with Medicare covering the skilled visits and private duty covering the hours that need clinical presence.

Yes, and most families do. Medicare covers the skilled nursing visits while private duty covers the personal care, supervision and household help in between.

Because both come from one agency, the two plans are coordinated rather than run by two organizations that never speak. The caregiver sees the nursing notes, and the nurse knows what the caregiver is observing daily.