Transitions & Continuing Care
Home Health & In-Home Care
The difference between skilled home health, non-medical home care, and private caregivers — plus what Medicare covers and where in-home support reaches its limits.
Professional Introduction
Understanding Home Health
Two very different services share the word home. Skilled home health is physician-ordered, time-limited clinical care — nursing, physical therapy, wound care — often covered by Medicare after a hospitalization. Non-medical home care is hourly caregiving for bathing, meals, transportation, and companionship, and is almost always paid privately.
Families frequently believe they have arranged more coverage than they have. A home health nurse visiting twice weekly is not supervision, and it is not a substitute for the twenty-four-hour awareness a declining senior may require.
This category clarifies what each service delivers, what it costs, how to vet an agency, and the point at which in-home care becomes both more expensive and less safe than a licensed community.
Featured Resources
Published guides in this hub
Full-length educational guides, written and clinically reviewed by our care navigators.
In Development
Coming to this hub
These guides are in research and clinical review. Ask us about any of them today — a navigator will walk you through it personally.
Hiring a Private Caregiver: Risks and Protections
In progressTaxes, liability, background screening, and what happens when your caregiver is sick.
Video Library
Watch and learn
Short, plain-language explanations recorded by our care navigators. Filming in progress.
What Medicare Home Health Actually Covers
7 minThe eligibility rules that surprise most families.
Coming soon
Downloadable Guides
Take it with you
Printable checklists and worksheets built from the questions families ask us most. Request an early copy any time.
Home Care Agency Vetting Checklist
PDF checklistLicensing, insurance, caregiver screening, and continuity of coverage.
Request this guide
Family Questions
Home Health: common questions
Does Medicare pay for in-home caregivers?
Medicare covers skilled, physician-ordered home health for a limited period when eligibility criteria are met. It does not cover ongoing non-medical caregiving for bathing, meals, or companionship.
When does in-home care stop making sense?
Commonly when supervision needs approach around the clock, when two caregivers are needed for transfers, or when the total hourly cost exceeds what a licensed community would charge for continuous coverage.
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