Kinds of care

What is Home health agency?

A home health agency is an organisation that provides skilled nursing and therapy at home, and is certified and star-rated by Medicare.

Medicare publishes a quality rating for every certified agency, which is public and comparable. This is different from a private-duty home care agency, which supplies non-medical caregivers and is not Medicare-rated.

Families often need both at different points, and the words are used loosely by providers.

Why it matters

The Medicare rating is one of the few genuinely independent quality signals available when choosing.

Sources

Where to check this, and where to read more. All external and all authoritative.

Home health agency where you live

The local guide on this, for each city we cover.

Related terms

All 92 terms, A to Z