Home health workers provide essential services to thousands of Americans every year. When weighing your career options in the home health care field, you might find it helpful to compare short-term care and long-term care roles. While there is an overlap in the duties you are likely to perform, the differences may suit some personalities better than others.
Let’s explore short-term care and long-term care roles for professional caregivers and other home health providers.
What is short-term care?
As the name suggests, short-term care is temporary medical care provided to a patient after a surgery, injury, or illness. Home health care providers often perform their services in a patient’s home. This allows the patient to recover where they are most comfortable.
Short-term care is most often goal-oriented. Caregivers may assist patients with different types of physical therapy to help them relieve pain and restore movement. You may also assist with a patient’s occupational therapy, which helps equip them with the skills they need to care for themselves.
Providing short-term care lets you work with many different patients. You may only have one patient at a time, but you will likely only stay with them for a matter of weeks or months.
Is short-term care provided for older adults?
Short-term care frequently caters to people who are recovering from surgery, injury or illness. This means that you might end up providing short-term care for an older adult following a surgery that requires rehab, such as a hip replacement. Short-term care may also be used by older patients while they recover from an injury or major illness.
What is long-term care?
Long-term care is medical aid and caregiving assistance provided to a patient with no end date. A patient with ongoing health needs, a disability, or a degenerative condition may need the services of a home health aide or caregiver for the rest of their life.
While short-term care focuses on an end goal, the aims of long-term care are often focused on comfort and safety. Long-term caregivers can help provide a patient and their family with peace of mind, knowing that a professional is there to give necessary medical assistance and respond to emergencies.
Caregivers and home health aides are often very involved in a patient’s day-to-day needs when providing long-term care, including their personal hygiene and mobility. You might also do some light housework, prepare meals, run errands, and accompany them to doctor’s appointments.
Long-term care roles mean that you may see fewer patients throughout your career, instead devoting your time to just one or two patients a week over a long period of time. Depending on their age and condition, you could be helping the same person for many years. This can be a great opportunity to really get to know a patient and their family.
Do younger people ever need long-term care?
Long-term care is not just restricted to older adults who require additional care and support in their own home. Younger patients who are living with a chronic illness or a disability may need long-term care services.
Recommended reading: Types of caregiver certifications
Protecting your business
Regardless of whether you decide to provide long-term or short-term care to patients, you may want to protect your small business. From mistakenly giving the wrong dosage of medicine to a patient, to falling ill and needing to take time off work, a range of accidents and unexpected occurrences can happen. That’s why caregiver insurance is designed to meet the unique needs of home health care providers. It can provide important protections so you can focus on providing patients with excellent care.
Learn more about caregiver insurance and home health aide insurance with BizInsure. Compare quotes online and secure your home health business in minutes – no paperwork required!
