The medical care provided to an elderly person at home most of the time allows them to avoid an excessively long stay in hospital or their premature admission to a specialized establishment. Benefiting from home care is therefore a good solution for all those over 60 who require medical care but who wish to stay at home. Who is home care for? How to benefit from it?
Home care is all the care that can be performed at home by a nurse. This may involve hygiene and comfort care such as washing for the elderly with loss of autonomy or medical acts that a nurse can perform such as changing dressings, injections, blood tests, distribution of drugs, etc. This care that takes place at home is also called nursing care. They can be carried out by nurses or by nursing assistants under the responsibility of a nurse.
Home care allows hospitalized elderly people in particular to be able to return to their homes while continuing to benefit from medical care. They can also make it possible to delay the entry of seniors into an institution for the elderly when they wish to continue living at home.
This home care can concern all people, and in particular the elderly. Their attending physician, or the physician of the establishment where they are hospitalized, decides on the merits of home care. If he considers that they are possible and essential, the doctor writes a medical prescription which indicates which nursing services are competent to carry out this care at home, according to their nature, and sends the request for their coverage to the Health insurance.
It should be noted that it is quite possible to benefit at the same time from home help financed by the personalized autonomy allowance (APA) and from a nurse for care also at home.
Different people or structures are authorized to provide home care. The doctor defines the most appropriate service based on the medical care and/or comfort to be provided.
Home nursing services (SSIAD) are intended for people over the age of 60 who are sick or with a loss of autonomy, people with disabilities and people with chronic illnesses. These are caregivers or nurses who work in the person's home seven days a week on medical prescription from a doctor and for as long as the latter deems this care essential.
It is up to the elderly person who must benefit from home care to contact an SSIAD close to his home to be able to benefit from its services. The directory of these services is available on the National Information Portal for the autonomy of the elderly and support for their loved ones. A nurse coordinator comes to the home of the person concerned to assess and determine the nature and frequency of the necessary interventions.
Home care provided by SSIADs is fully covered by health insurance. The elderly person concerned does not need to advance the resulting costs.
The SSIADs have the advantage of also playing a coordinating role between medical (doctor, physiotherapist, pedicurist, etc.) and non-medical stakeholders such as home help for example for better support for the elderly.
The multipurpose home help and care services (SPASAD) have the same prerogatives as the SSIADs, but they also offer the possibility of accessing home help services. The SPASADs thus make life easier for the elderly who request them by coordinating all the home support services for them, via a single point of contact. The costs of the interventions of a SPASAD are borne by the Health Insurance for nursing care, and by the elderly person himself for those related to home help.
To benefit from SPASAD services, as for SSIADs, you must be over 60 and have a medical prescription. The 2015 law relating to the adaptation of society to aging promotes the development of these services.
Nursing health centers are structures that employ state-certified nurses. The latter intervene seven days a week in the homes of people who need home care prescribed by their doctor, and who request it.
Home care provided by nursing health centers is covered by health insurance and the person's complementary health insurance. These structures practice the delegation of the payment of the third party, which avoids the advance of the expenses.
The directory of nursing health centers to contact to consider their intervention at home is available on the Health Insurance website.
Private nurses are authorized to intervene with the elderly who benefit from a medical prescription to provide them with certain medical care at home. Beneficiaries pay directly the cost of the acts of these nurses who are then reimbursed by Health Insurance up to 60% if the nurse is under agreement. The remaining 40% is the responsibility of the person and can then be reimbursed by their complementary health insurance. Elderly people covered at 100% in the case of a long-term illness (ALD) are fully reimbursed for this home care.
