Patients may benefit from home health services if:

• They have recently been hospitalized
• They have been newly 

          diagnosed with a chronic illness

• They are trying to manage a chronic illness
• They are recovering from surgery
• They have had a heart attack or stroke
• They have had a hip or knee replacement
• They have been diagnosed

          with a life-limiting illness.

Home Care Admission Criteria 

include:

• Patient needs skilled health care — nursing, physical therapy or speech therapy.
• Patient needs part-time care on an intermittent basis.
• The attending physician will sign the initial  plan of care.

Medicare and some other insurance plans also require that the patient be homebound (see right).  As of January 2011, Medicare also requires that the attending physician has had a Face-to-Face Encounter with the patient either:

• 90 days prior to the start of

          home care services or 

• Within 30 days after the start of care 

and that the face-to-face was related 

to the primary reason for home care.

For more information, to make a referral, or

for a consultation to see if a patient is

appropriate for home health care,

call 800-249-8298