Vanessa Home Health Services

Sometimes serious illness or injury leaves a person without ability for self-care, and they may need help at home. 

At home, patients remain safe in familiar surroundings with the knowledge and ability to manage their conditions, medications and symptoms. Another benefit of receiving care in the home is that family members and caregivers can be more readily available and can be more involved.

Occupational therapy can help you to overcome challenges you might face as you recover. It  is designed to help you make small adjustments to regain the ability to complete activities you do on a daily basis and improve your quality of life.

Whether you are heading home from a hospital or a skilled nursing facility, or you have experienced a recent decline from your condition, you only need to meet a few guidelines to receive Medicare home health services. You must:

• Need skilled nursing care (not custodial services or personal care assistance)
• Be under the care of a physician who has established a home health plan of care (POC) for you
• Have had a face-to-face meeting regarding your primary diagnosis for home health with a physician or an allowed non-physician practitioner (NPP) in the past 90 days
• Not be able to leave home on your own without assistance or have a condition that makes leaving home medically unsafe.

When patients leave the hospital and return home with home care, they go from highly supportive medical environments with potentially many physicians, nurses, aides, and other professionals, to non-medical environments with formal and informal caregiver support frequently supplemented by visits from home care nurses. 

Patients and caregivers must struggle to absorb confusing and potentially contradictory information imparted both by multiple clinicians prior to discharge from the hospital and by home care nurses. 

Providers, for their part, often have incomplete understandings of home environments and patient and caregiver capabilities. 

Despite these difficulties, patients are largely left to themselves, expected to be engaged in their care sufficiently to own and manage their medical conditions. It is a daunting task. This is where the ‘Vanessa Home Health Services’ (VHHS) comes for help. 

Our home nurses are willing and enthusiastic to improve the patients’ care. They provide a valuable service to the patients by helping them stay healthier, reducing costs, and helping them avoid hospitals and long-term care facilities.

If you are caring for a loved one, here are the ways we can support you:

• VHHS professionals can be there when you aren’t able to be
• Access to skilled nursing care at home
• Support with diet and nutrition
• Medication management
• Caring companionship
• Much More

Seniors falling is not usually a laughing matter. As we age, falls can become increasingly common and risky for seniors. The frequency of falls increases with age and frailty level. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Report, approximately 30-50% of people living in long-term care institutions fall each year, and 40% of them experienced recurrent falls.

While you may not be able to always stop a senior from falling, you can take some steps to help reduce the risk. There are many reasons for falls in the elderly, so make sure to look at the whole picture. Use these precautions from Vanessa Home Health Center professionals to take care of your loved one and their home to prevent falls:

The bathroom is essential. 

• Avoid wet surfaces (on the floor or counters). 
• Use non-slip mats in the bathtub and shower. 
• Install grab bars in strategic points around the bathroom.
• Provide a shower seat.
• Replace the shower head with a hand-held nozzle.

Stairs are more than important.

• Clear the stairs.
• Differentiate between the stairs. Aging eyes may not always be able to separate one step from the next.
• Shovel snow and chip ice off stairs in the winter.
• Tighten stair handrails.

Tuck away extension cords

Get your senior a proper pair of shoes. 

• Shoes need to fit well and have non-slip soles. 
• Shoes with Velcro straps can be easier to tighten or loosen. 
• They also remove any risk of tripping over long laces.

Remove excess furniture. 

• A more mobile senior may be able to sidestep a footstool or a coffee table but not all seniors can do this. 
• Remove unneeded furniture to give the senior more room to maneuver and help to create a safer living environment. 
• Also, a deep plush armchair may look comfortable but the senior may become trapped if he or she lacks the body strength necessary to push up and out of the chair.

And finally, keep a senior active. Whether through regular walking or light exercising and stretching, an active senior can remain more stable than a sedentary senior. Exercising can help prevent falls by keeping stabilizing muscles strong.  

Let’s say you end up in the hospital after a fall and get surgery on your knee and have not completely healed from your injury after spending at least 3 days. 

The discharge documents from your physician will include information about you being homebound and needing short-term skilled care. The documents will also include a plan of care that notifies Medicare and health care agencies of the services and equipment you will need while being cared for. Once this happens you are now eligible to receive home health care from a Medicare-approved agency.
The Medicare will however cover only care for specific services:

Skilled nursing care and rehabilitative care from approved home health care services, such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology services, medical social services, durable medical equipment, medical supplies, and other services provided in your home.

• Skilled nursing care

A nurse comes to your home to treat your illness or injury. This is covered on a part-time basis. You can only get this care from a registered or licensed practical nurse. Medicare pays for a nurse to watch you and see if your condition changes. It also pays for a nurse to teach you and your caregivers how to take care of you.

• Rehabilitative care

Physical, speech-language and occupational therapy: You can get treatments to help you improve or maintain your ability to move, talk, swallow and do daily activities for as long as your doctor says you need them. These are called physical therapy and speech and language therapy services. If you get this kind of skilled therapy at home, you can also qualify for home health aide care.

As healthcare becomes more efficient and sometimes less invasive, treatment doesn’t necessarily require a hospital or doctor’s office. That also means that the critically ill or immobile patients don’t have to go through the burdensome process of leaving their home.

If you’re wondering whether Medicare covers home health care services, the answer is, yes.

Are you covered by Medicare?

Home health care services are covered under Original Medicare—Part A and Part B. As long as you qualify you should have no out of pocket costs. Before Medicare covers your home health care treatment you have to be deemed eligible. Make sure you meet these criteria:

• You’re under the care of a doctor and that plan is reviewed regularly by the doctor.
• You and your doctor agree that you need skilled nursing care, physical therapy, speech or language services, or continued occupational therapy.
• The home health care agency is Medicare-approved.
• Your unable to leave your home without major effort or your doctor recommends that you not leave your home.
• Your doctor, or an eligible representative of your doctor like a nurse practitioner, must have face-to-face encounters with you at certain intervals to address the reason you need home health care.

Finally, home health care is normally “intermittent”— less than 7 days per week for less than 8 hours each day and 28 hours per week for up to 21 days. If you need full-time skilled nursing care, you won’t usually qualify.

What can Medicare Cover?

Skilled Nursing– A registered nurse (RN) or licensed practical nurse (LPN) may provide services like giving IV drugs, injections, feeding tube maintenance, teaching about diabetes care, and more.