Medicare is an acute care system of insurance; you need a condition that is being treated by medical professions to get coverage.
For home care, you need certification by a doctor that you require care by a professional. Medicare says: “Examples of skilled nursing care include: giving IV drugs, shots, or tube feedings; changing dressings; and teaching about prescription drugs or diabetes care. Any service that could be done safely by a non-medical person (or by yourself) without the supervision of a nurse, isn’t skilled nursing care.”
Having someone cook or clean for you, dress you, help you in and out of bed isn’t considered skilled care.
The care has to be “intermittent,” meaning “given on fewer than 7 days each week or less than 8 hours each day over a period of 21 days (or less) with some exceptions in special circumstances. “
And the care has to be delivered by personnel from a Medicare-certified and licensed home health care agency.
You also have to be home-bound Medicare’s definition: “Your condition keeps you from leaving home without help (such as using a wheelchair or walker, needing special transportation, or getting help from another person). Leaving home takes a considerable and taxing effort.
A person may leave home for medical treatment or short, infrequent absences for non-medical reasons, such as attending religious services. You can still get home health care if you attend adult day care, but you would get the home care services in your home.”
