When recovering at home after a hospital stay, many people hear the terms home care and home health and assume they’re interchangeable. But according to Malina Rivers, RN and Chief Operating Officer of BrightStar Care of Charlottesville, understanding the difference is crucial, especially when planning a safe and successful return home. 

“In my mind I see two very different lines of care, but to the average person they often hear ‘care in my home’ and while both of those things are care for you in your home, they in fact serve a different purpose,” Rivers explained. “They’re paid for in different ways, and they contain different sorts of levels of care.” 

What Is Home Care?
Home care refers to personal care and other day-to-day support that helps individuals with routine tasks in the comfort of their home. This can include help with bathing, dressing, meal preparation, light housekeeping, and more. It’s often arranged through private agencies and typically paid for out of pocket, so people need to be prepared financially for the costs. Services can range from short daily check-ins to full 24-hour support, depending on the individual’s needs. 

What Is Home Health?
Home health involves short-term skilled medical care delivered in the home, usually following a hospitalization or acute medical event. It is most often covered by Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance and includes services such as physical therapy, nursing care, or IV treatments. These visits are brief and goal-oriented, ending once the patient reaches a recovery milestone or plateaus in progress. 

Home health does not include the kind of day-to-day living assistance that home care does, so a person might need both services at the same time.

Rivers clarified that people often confuse the two services.

“Many times we find that they think home health is home care, that all those personal activities of daily living are going to be tended to with home health,” Rivers noted. “That’s not what home health is.” 

Planning for the Transition Home
The biggest mistake? Not having a plan.

“Sometimes you’ll be discharged with home health, you’ll get home and the home health provider, if you get discharged on a Friday, you won’t even hear from them until Monday to get you scheduled,” Rivers said. “So what’s your plan over the weekend? Are you ready?” 

Rivers urges patients and their families to ask questions before leaving a facility so they have a clear understanding of what type of services will be provided for them and what additional help they might need.

“Don’t even pretend that you got it. Ask a lot of questions. What does home health mean? Who’s coming? How many times are they coming?” she said.  

Final Thoughts
Ultimately, Rivers recommends taking initiative and ensuring you have the right support in place, whether it’s home health, home care, or both. “Home health is a great way to recover in your home environment,” she said. “But if you find like, ‘Man, I’m struggling to get my meal, I’m scared to get in the shower when the therapist isn’t here,’ you need to advocate for yourself to get that additional home care to supplement that home health visit.”