How to Manage Home Health Care Costs

Many seniors are choosing to stay home instead of a nursing home or an assisted living facility. These individuals are generally able to perform most of their daily activities, but may need help with some of the more physically and mentally demanding tasks.

Private and non profit home health agencies provide assistance with household chores, medical visits, companionship and other services. The costs to hire staff from a home health agency can run high, however these can be managed by taking a few steps when contracting an agency.

Instructions

• 1

  Determine how much help is necessary at home. Before hiring home health care evaluate your personal situation and make a list of the tasks you need assistance with. This will help decide how many hours a home health attendant is required to spend at your home. The objective is to use as few hours as possible to help manage home care costs.

  You may need assistance with going outside of the house, running errands or with medication organizing. In these situations you'll schedule home care hours for these tasks for specific days of the week. However, if you can prepare your own meals or buy them cooked it won't be necessary to schedule this task. Make sure to contract only services you need assistance with.

• 2

  Identify certified non profit home health care agencies. These agencies are community based and may receive government grants and other non profit financial assistance. Generally, these home care agencies have lower costs because of their not for profit nature. Find information on certified home health care agencies by visiting your State Medicare; Medicaid or Department of the Aging internet sites. Many of these agencies accept private insurance and self paying clients.

• 3

  Manage the nurses and home attendant visits. Keep the visits to a few per week to reduce home health costs. Use the tasks schedule developed to keep the visits down. Coordinate as many activities as possible together to keep the number of hours to a minimum.

• 4

  Consider paying home health attendants by the hour. If you are self paying or have control over the home care compensation, use hourly pay instead of per visit payment. Studies conducted by Medicare have shown that hourly pay is less expensive then per visit pay because the lack of incentive to increase visits.

• 5

  Compare a few non profits and private home health agencies. Get an estimate for home care costs that fit your needs and find the best value. Give each agency under consideration a list of tasks you need assistance with at home. Also, provide each agency with a budget that you can spend on home care. The agencies will issue cost quotes per hour or per visit. Choose the agency that can meet your budget and your care needs.