Covering all Bases: Home Health Care Insurance

When a decision has to be made as to what coverage is needed for individual health care, home health care insurance is an important consideration if the person is nearing retirement age or if he has a relative living in the home that is nearing that age, for which he will be the primary care giver. Choosing home health care insurance carefully is important since today there are many more options available for a person whose health is slowly deteriorating and will need different stages of health care during the process.

Types of Care

One type of care that home health care insurance should cover is any care that is provided within the person's house. Often at the beginning, the senior can be cared for within the home with a minimum of outside help. Perhaps all they would need is a person to come and help with laundry and meals, or a little cleaning, which can get expensive in itself and should be covered in a home health care insurance plan. In addition, as time goes on, the person may require that a nurse comes to visit on a regular basis for medication and check ups, which also is costly.

There are also adult day care centers that an individual can use to drop off the senior during the day for meals and activities as well as medical care while the individual goes to work. These centers can be costly, but are much needed when an individual still wants to be able to care for his mom or dad at home, rather than in an assisted living center or nursing home. Home health care insurance should help with these costs in addition to getting tax breaks at the end of the year from paying for these services.

Once the individual needs more help than can be provided within an individual's household, but are still not needed twenty four hour assistance of the nature that a nursing home provides, there are assisted living centers that provide whatever amount of supervision and help that a senior needs while still maintaining the feel of having his or her own home. Assisted living situations should also be covered under home health care insurance, since this is still care within an individual's home, yet it is a home within a community of seniors where they can get as much help as they need, depending on their health issues.