Home Care vs Home Health Care
Home care helps with everyday life. Home health care is the nursing or therapy a doctor orders. Many families use both at once.
Home care is help with daily life at home, from company and meals to hands-on help with bathing and dressing, while home health care is skilled care a doctor orders, such as nursing or physical therapy; Endurance Home Care provides home care, as a registered Connecticut homemaker companion agency, HCA.0002450, and many families use both at once.
What’s the difference?
Home care is help with the ordinary parts of the day: company, meals, the house, errands, rides to appointments, and hands-on help with bathing and dressing when it’s needed. A caregiver comes for the hours your family chooses, from a few a week to around the clock.
Connecticut keeps them apart on purpose. Endurance Home Care holds a Homemaker Companion Agency registration, HCA.0002450, issued by the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, and home health care sits under separate licensure.
Home health care is skilled care a doctor orders, such as nursing, physical therapy or visits from a home health aide. It usually comes as scheduled visits for a set period, often after a hospital stay or a change in health. The two often run side by side.
Home care
Home health care
Help with daily life at home.
Skilled care a doctor has ordered.
A caregiver from a home care agency.
Nurses, therapists and home health aides from a home health agency.
The hours your family chooses: a few a week, overnight, live-in or around the clock.
Visits set by the care the doctor ordered, usually for a set period.
Breakfast, a shower, a walk, a ride to the doctor, a reminder that it's time for a pill, company through the afternoon.
A nurse checking a wound or how recovery is going, or a therapist working on strength and balance.
Usually privately, or through a long-term care insurance policy.
Often Medicare or health insurance, when their conditions are met.
Endurance Home Care: companion care in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, and personal care in Connecticut and New Jersey.
In Connecticut, our separate company, Endurance Home Health.
Endurance Home Care helps with daily life at home: company, meals, the house, errands, appointments and, where it's needed, hands-on personal care. For skilled nursing, home health aides or physical therapy in Connecticut, our separate company, Endurance Home Health, can help. If you’re not sure which kind of help a situation calls for, tell us what’s happening and we’ll talk it through with you.
What a home care caregiver helps with
These are the everyday tasks families ask about most. The care plan sets which ones your caregiver helps with, and when, and it changes as needs change.
Company
Conversation, a card game, a walk, a meal shared at the table. Someone to spend the day with.
Personal care
Hands-on help with bathing, dressing, using the bathroom and moving safely around the house.
Meals
Planning, shopping and cooking, and company at mealtimes.
Around the house
Laundry, light housekeeping and keeping the kitchen the way they like it.
Rides and errands
Rides to appointments, the pharmacy or a friend's house, with someone to go in alongside them.
Medication reminders
A reminder when it's time for the next dose, at the times written into the care plan.
Someone nearby
Company for the hours when being alone has started to worry you, including through the night.
The first weeks home from the hospital are when most families who call us use both.
After a hospital stay, a nurse or therapist may come for the visits the doctor ordered. Between those visits there’s the rest of the day: meals, getting washed and dressed, keeping track of new medicines, getting to the follow-up appointment, and having someone around while your dad gets his strength back.
That’s where home care helps. Transitional Care is a named Endurance type of care, and Endurance Homebound, our hospital-to-home program, is built around the first 72 hours after discharge and plans them with your family, and your caregiver can stay on for as long as the help is useful. If you can, call us before the discharge date so we can talk through what the first days will need.
Which kind of care does your family need?
These four questions usually sort it out. Start with the one closest to what’s happening at home.
01
Has a doctor ordered nursing or therapy at home?
Then that part is home health care, and the hospital or doctor's office usually arranges it. Help with the rest of the day is home care, and that's the part your family arranges. Start with our plain guide to companion care.
02
Is the hard part the day, or help with bathing and dressing?
If it's meals, errands, company and getting out, companion care fits. If it's help in the shower, getting dressed or getting up safely, that's personal care. The difference is explained in companion care vs personal care.
03
Is someone coming home from the hospital?
Then you'll probably use both for a while: the visits the doctor ordered, and a caregiver for the hours in between. To picture those hours, read what a companion caregiver does each visit.
04
You know what you need. How do you choose an agency?
Ask each agency how it's registered in your state, how it chooses and introduces caregivers, and who keeps you updated. More questions worth asking are in choosing a home care agency.
Home care and home health care meet different needs, so choosing one rarely means giving up the other. Home health care follows the doctor’s orders. Home care follows your family’s days, and it can change as those days change.
Questions families ask
What is the difference between home care and home health care?
Home care is help with daily life: company, meals, light housekeeping, errands, rides, reminders and, where it's needed, hands-on help with bathing, dressing and moving safely. Home health care is skilled care a doctor orders, such as nursing, physical therapy or visits from a home health aide, usually for a set period after an illness or a hospital stay. Endurance Home Care provides home care, as a registered homemaker companion agency, HCA.0002450. In Connecticut, our separate company, Endurance Home Health, provides skilled nursing, home health aides and physical therapy.
Does Endurance Home Care provide home health or nursing services?
Endurance Home Care helps with daily life at home: company, meals, the house, errands, appointments and hands-on personal care where it's needed. For skilled nursing, home health aides or physical therapy in Connecticut, our separate company, Endurance Home Health, can help, and its team can work alongside your Endurance caregiver. Tell us what the doctor has ordered and what the days look like, and we'll explain how the two fit together.
Can home care and home health care work together?
Yes, and after a hospital stay they often do. A nurse or therapist comes for the visits the doctor ordered, and a caregiver helps with the hours in between: meals, reminders, rides to follow-up appointments and company through the day. Endurance Home Care's Transitional Care service and Endurance Homebound, our hospital-to-home program, are built for exactly that window. Homebound plans the first 72 hours after discharge with your family, and the caregiver can stay on for as long as the help is useful.
Does Medicare pay for home care or home health care?
Medicare can pay for home health care when a doctor orders it and the person meets Medicare's conditions, such as being mostly unable to leave home. It does not pay for ongoing daily help at home, like company, meals or help with bathing, when that is the only care needed. Endurance Home Care is private pay, and families with a long-term care insurance policy can use it. We help with the policy paperwork.
Let’s talk about the help your family needs
Tell us what’s happening at home and what the doctor has arranged. We’ll explain how home care can fit around it. Most families need both at once. Connecticut registration HCA.0002450. The first conversation is free, and nothing starts until you say so.