Home Health Care in Hollywood, Florida

Two different things share one name

This confuses almost everyone, and it is worth ten minutes of your time.

• Medicare home health is a course of treatment: A doctor certifies that you are homebound and need intermittent skilled nursing or therapy. A nurse or therapist visits a few times a week for a defined period. It is medical, it is temporary, and it is designed to get you past a specific episode.
• Private home care is ongoing support with daily life: Bathing, dressing, meals, medication reminders, supervision, driving, company. It can be a few hours a week or around the clock, it continues for as long as you need it, and Medicare does not pay for it.

What happens when the Medicare episode ends

Both are real. Both are called home health care. They solve different problems, and one of them stops.

It ends for one of two reasons. Either the skilled need is met, because the wound healed or the therapy goals were reached, or you are no longer considered homebound, which can happen simply because you improved enough to leave the house.

Either way, the visits stop.

For many families this is the moment the real problem appears. The nurse who came three times a week was never the person helping at 7am or making sure dinner happened. Nobody was doing that. It was invisible while the household was in crisis mode, and it becomes obvious the week the visits end.

Hollywood has a specific version of this, because Memorial Healthcare System runs its own home health agency out of Taft Street, and it serves Memorial Regional Hospital patients. That is a perfectly good arrangement for the Medicare episode. It is simply not designed to be what comes after it, and it is not supposed to be.

Ask these before the episode ends, not after

The nurse or therapist who has been visiting will usually tell you the truth if you ask directly. They know how this goes. Ask these four things, and if the answers point to ongoing help, arrange it before the last visit rather than two weeks after, when the household is already struggling and everyone is tired.

• When is the last visit likely to be?: Ask at the second or third visit, not at the last one.
• What will still be difficult once these visits stop?: Bathing, stairs, medication, meals, getting to appointments.
• Is a home safety assessment worth doing?: Therapists often spot things a family will not.
• What would you set up if this were your parent?: A remarkably effective question.

Children, and Joe DiMaggio

Hollywood is also home to Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital, on the Memorial Regional campus, which holds the Level I pediatric trauma designation for south Broward.

Home care for a child is not adult care scaled down. It usually means private duty nursing rather than aide visits, it often runs for years rather than weeks, and it is funded differently, frequently through Florida Medicaid rather than Medicare, which does not generally apply to children.

Families in this position are typically dealing with a medically complex child, a lot of equipment, and a schedule that has to work around school. What they need most is the same nurse, reliably, for a long time.

Focus Family Care provides pediatric home care and private duty nursing across Broward for all ages. If that is your situation, say so on the first call, because the assessment is different.

What we provide in Hollywood and south Broward

Skilled nursing, including wound care, medication management, IV therapy and post-surgical care. Home health aides for bathing, dressing, mobility and personal care. 24-hour and live-in care. Respite care for family caregivers. Alzheimer's and dementia care. Companion care and transportation to appointments. Private duty nursing and pediatric home care, because we serve all ages and not only seniors.

A registered nurse writes and supervises every Hollywood care plan. Aides do not work unsupervised.

Where we serve

Hollywood, including Hollywood Hills, Emerald Hills, Hollywood Lakes and the beach, plus Hallandale Beach, Dania Beach, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Davie and Cooper City.

About 75 Focus Family Care caregivers are based in and around Hollywood and south Broward. From your first call, a first visit is typically within 24 to 48 hours.

Paying for care

Broward County is its own Florida Medicaid region, and eligibility screening runs through the Area Agency on Aging of Broward County. Full detail is on our Broward County page.

For adults, Medicare covers the skilled episode described above and does not fund ongoing personal care. Florida Medicaid Long-Term Care can, if you qualify.

For children, Florida Medicaid is usually the relevant route rather than Medicare, and private duty nursing hours are authorized differently from adult services.

Focus Family Care accepts Medicare, Florida Medicaid, private pay, and more than 100 private insurance plans, and verifies coverage at no charge before the first visit.