Home Health Agency Search Engine

By: AARP Outreach & Services | Source: AARP.org | May 31, 2007

If it ever becomes necessary to find a home health agency, you'll want to know that the agency you select provides quality care.

Medicare's home health agency online comparison tool is one place to start.

It has useful information that includes:

• Name and location of the agency.
• Type of ownership.
• The date the agency became Medicare certified. (Only Medicare certified agencies are listed.)
• A list of Medicare covered services provided by each agency.
• The percent of patients affected by certain quality measures. (For example, the percent of patients who get better at taking their medicines correctly.)
• Ratings for each home health agency and the ability to compare this agency with an average of all home health agencies in your state and across the U. S.

Once on Medicare's home health agency comparison web site, you can begin your search for a home health agency in one of two ways.

1. All home health agencies within a certain state, county, or zip code. (A list of the home health agencies in the area you specified will appear on a new page.)
2. A specific home health agency by entering all or some of its name.

Note: Agencies that provide homemaker services for household duties and non-medical personal care such as preparing meals, bathing, dressing or moving around the house are not listed unless they also provide home health care.

Medicare covers home health care under certain conditions. You must be homebound and need skilled nursing or other skilled services like physical, occupational or speech-language therapy. Your doctor must order the care and make a plan for your care. The care must be provided by a Medicare-certified home health agency. Visits are limited to what is reasonable and necessary and must be on a part-time and/or intermittent basis. Typically, Medicare pays for a limited number of visits.

Use the information from the Medicare site with:

• recommendations from your doctor,
• recommendations from family and friends,
• information from the state survey agency or the state quality improvement organization (phone numbers are listed in the tool), and,
• interviews with administrators or supervisors from several agencies under your consideration. We recommend you use the AARP home health agency checklist to help guide your questions.