Home Care Facts

What is Home Care?
Home care is a service to recovering, disabled or chronically ill people who need medical treatment and/or assistance with the activities of daily living (ADLs).  Generally, home care is appropriate when a person requires care, and family and friends cannot easily or effectively provide it on their own.  The National Association for Home Care estimates that more than 8 million Americans currently receive home care for both acute, and long term needs.  This figure increases every day, as greater numbers of people area able to leave institutions or, thanks to advancing technology, avoid ever having to enter them.  State-of-the-art medical equipment for use in the home now can provide treatments and services that once were available only in the hospital.

Home Care History?
Home care has been an American tradition for more than a century.  Public health nurses started traveling to patients' homes in the 1880's, caring for the sick, teaching family members how to provide care in their absence, suggesting ways to improve health, and comforting the dying.  Men and women in Catholic religious orders have been providing these services even longer than that.

Who Provides Home Care?
Home care services usually are provided by home care organizations, but may also be obtained from registries and independent providers.  Home care organizations include home health agencies, hospices, homemaker and home care aide (HCA) agencies, staffing and private-duty agencies and companies specialize in medical equipment and supplies, pharmaceuticals, and drug infusion therapy.  These organizations hire or contract with physicians (MDs & DOs), registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), physical (PT) Occupational (OT) and respiratory (RT) therapists and assistants; HCAs; dieticians; laboratory technologists; dentists and dental hygienists pharmacists; medical social workers (MSWs) and speech pathologists.

Who Pays For Home Care?
Home care is paid for directly by the patient and his or her family members, or through a variety of private and public sources. Hospices generally provide care regardless of the patient's and family's ability to pay.  That is why they depend largely on community donations and volunteer support to function.  Private insurance programs typically cover some services for acute needs, but benefit for long-tern services vary from plan to plan.  Public third-party payers include Medicare, Medicaid, the Older Americans Act, the Veterans Administration, Social Security Black Grant programs, and community organizations.

What Are The Advantages of Home Care?

• Home care improves our society's quality of life by enabling individual to stay in the comfort and security of their own during times of illness, disability, and recuperation.

• Home care maintains the patient's dignity and independence - qualities that commonly are lost in institutional settings.

• Home care is less expensive than other forms of health care delivery.  In 1997, the average Medicare charges per day in a hospital were approximately $2,121 and in a skilled nursing facility were approximately $454.  The average Medicare charge per home care visit during this time was about $88.

• Home care offers a wide range of specialized services tailored to meet the needs of every individual on a personal provider-to-patient basis.

• Home care reinforces and supplements informal care by educating the patient's family members and friends about the care giving process.

What is the Future of Home Care?
Every eight seconds, a baby boomer in America turns 50.  In less than 10 years, when baby boomers begin to retire, one our of every five Americans will be over the age of 65,  By 2040, the number of Americans over the age of 80 will triple to 26.2 million.  As these three simple facts illustrate, America is growing older and living longer.  Americans, led by the baby boom generation, are benefiting from medical advances that are extending their lives well into their 80s, 90s and 100s.

But with this extended life comes am increase in chronic disease and illnesses, and the questions of how to pay for long-term care.  This can create an unimaginable emotional and financial burden on families.  Nearly 10% of all baby boomers find themselves on a financial tightrope, balancing the cost of caring for an elderly relative, financing their children's education, and saving for their own retirement.  Without an infusion of support, the American family and future generations will be crippled by the weight of caring for the elderly, disabled, and infirm.

Solution: Home Health Care, the Heart of American health care.

For more information about home care services in the southeast Missouri area, call: Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Missouri (VNA) at
1-800-286-5892 or the VNA office listed in your area phone book. 

Source:
Missouri Alliance for HOME CARE
2420 Hyde Park Rd, Suite A
Jefferson City, MO  65109-4731