In-Home Care in South Florida
Home care is hourly help at home that families pay for directly. No physician order is required and Medicare does not cover it. Health at Home provides home care on a per hour basis across Palm Beach, Broward, Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties, with a free in-home visit from a registered nurse before anything begins.
- Medicare Certified
- ACHC Accredited
- 25+ Years Serving Florida
What home care includes
Home care covers the parts of the day that have become difficult. A caregiver comes to the home on a schedule you set and helps with:
- Bathing, showering, dressing and grooming
- Getting up, moving safely around the house, and transferring in and out of a chair or bed
- Meal planning, cooking and help at mealtimes
- Medication reminders and help with self-administration
- Toileting and incontinence care
- Laundry, tidying, changing bedding and keeping the kitchen safe
- Rides to appointments, the pharmacy and the grocery store
- Company, conversation and getting out of the house
Care can be a few hours a week or around the clock. Most families start smaller than they expect to and add hours as things change.
Who home care is for
Families usually call when one of a few things has happened. A parent has stopped showering regularly and will not accept help from their own children. Someone has had a fall, or come close to one. The refrigerator has food in it nobody has eaten. A husband or wife has been managing alone and cannot keep doing it. Or an adult child has been driving over every day before work and is running out of vacation days.
None of those require a diagnosis or a doctor’s involvement. If daily life has become harder than it used to be, home care is the service that helps.
What home care costs
Home care is billed hourly, and around-the-clock care is billed at a lower hourly rate. The free in-home nurse visit produces a written estimate for your situation before you commit to anything.
What changes the price:
- The level of care needed, including whether two caregivers are required for safe transfers
- How many hours per week
- Overnight and weekend coverage
- 4 hours per day of service chosen
Long-term care insurance often applies to home care. We help families with that paperwork. Medicare does not pay for home care, which is explained in more detail on our Medicare home health page.
How care starts
A registered nurse comes to the home first. That visit is free and there is no obligation to book anything afterward.
01
The nurse meets the person who needs care, sees the home, and talks with the family
02
You get a written plan of care and a written estimate
03
We match a caregiver to the schedule and the situation
04
Care begins within 24 hours
If the nurse thinks fewer hours would serve your family better, she will say so. If a different kind of care would suit the situation better than home care, she will tell you that too.
Home care and home health are not the same thing
This is the single most common point of confusion, and it is worth being clear about.
Medicare home health
Medicare home health is skilled, medical care. It requires a doctor’s order, it is intermittent rather than continuous, and Medicare may cover it when the coverage criteria are met. Nurses and therapists provide it.
Home care
Home care is hourly and non-medical. No doctor’s order is needed, you decide the schedule, and the family pays privately. Aides provide it, supervised by a registered nurse. The industry calls this private duty care, which is the same thing.
Health at Home provides both. That matters more than it sounds. When a Medicare home health episode ends, most families are handed a discharge date and left to find someone new. Our home care team picks up from there with the same agency, the same office and the same records.
Why families choose Health at Home
- More than 25 years serving Southeast Florida, from two local offices in Port St. Lucie and Boynton Beach
- More than 150 five-star Google reviews
- Medicare-certified and ACHC accredited
- Every plan of care is written and supervised by a registered nurse
- Our caregivers are our employees. They are screened, background checked, insured and supervised
- A written estimate after the free nurse visit, so you know what care will cost before you commit
Questions families ask
What is home care?
Home care is hourly help at home that a family pays for directly. It covers bathing, dressing, meals, medication reminders, housekeeping and transportation. No doctor’s order is needed and you set the schedule.
How much does home care cost?
Home care is billed hourly, with a lower hourly rate for around-the-clock care. Cost depends on the level of care, how many hours per week, overnight and weekend coverage, and whether two caregivers are needed for safe transfers. A free in-home nurse visit produces a written estimate for your situation.
Does Medicare pay for home care?
No. Medicare may cover skilled home health when a doctor orders it and coverage criteria are met, but it does not pay for ongoing help with bathing, meals or companionship. Long-term care insurance and VA benefits often do.
What is the smallest amount of care we can start with?
Four hours per day. Many families begin with one or two mornings a week and add hours as things change.
My parent does not want help. What do we do?
This is the most common thing families tell us. People who refuse help from their own children will often accept it from a caregiver, because it does not feel like losing independence to their family. Starting small, with one specific task, works better than starting broad.
Do you provide live-in care?
No. Health at Home provides around-the-clock care using caregivers on rotating shifts, so someone is awake at every hour. Live-in care means one caregiver who sleeps in the home. For anyone who wakes or moves around at night, awake shift care is the safer arrangement.
A registered nurse can be at the house this week, and the visit is free.
Call our Port St. Lucie office or our Boynton Beach office and we will talk it through.