home care nursing Archives

Private home care assistance and private home care nursing are two options for providing care to seniors who wish to age-in-place.

Most companies around the Lexington, MA area specialize in either private home care nursing or home care assistance, but some agencies do both.

The biggest decider of the type of care that is needed is how medically complex the senior is.

Home Care Nursing

As with most senior care in-home services, home care nursing charges out-of-pocket in the majority of situations. Long-term care insurance does pay for some of the care, but it’s usually not all of it.

Home care nursing is more expensive than home care assistance. The higher cost comes from hiring licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and registered nurses (RNs) who possess the training to provide medical services to seniors in their homes. Therefore, the insurance is more expensive, and the nursing pay is much higher than aides.

You can expect private nursing services to cost upwards of $90 per hour. Usually, minimum blocks of time are required for a nurse to schedule, usually between 3-5 hours blocks.

Home care nursing will provide medical care, like feeding tubes, post-op care, medication management, and administration. Home care nursing can provides both non-medical and medical care services. They can provide the same type of care that home care assistance provides, but it also includes medical care.

Home Care Assistance

When looking at home care assistance, the cost will be far less, but the type of care is different.

Home health aides are providing non-medical care, but aides don’t perform the medical tasks. Thus the level of skill is lower, resulting in a lower cost to the customer.

Home care assistance is something that you should consider for a senior who does not have medical needs. Examples would be those with dementia, need help dressing and cleaning the laundry, making meals, showering, and fall prevention needs.

These tasks, while important, do not require the skills of an LPN or RN.

Home care aides can provide home care assistance to anyone of any age. Still, most of the time, they provide care to seniors who are declining, are at fall risk, have dementia, or other chronic diseases, limiting their ability to care for themselves.

Key Takeaways

Regardless if you are in Lexington, MA, or one of the surrounding towns, you will be able to find nurses and aides to provide home care services for your loved one.

The two major factors in the decision are:

Your budget – do you want to pay for a home care nurse or home care assistant?
The complexity of medical needs.

If you have all the money in the world and want the best, RNs are the way to go. Believe it or not, some people hire nurses to do tasks that home health aides can accomplish. They want a nurse.

If your needs are more medically complex and your goal is to keep mom out of a nursing home, nursing might be the way to go. If your mom is considering a nursing home because of dementia, that’s something a home health aide can assist for in her home, allowing your mom to age in place.