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Northwoods Home Health, A Division of Weeks Medical Center

What is home healthcare?

Home healthcare is necessary when a person needs ongoing care that cannot easily or effectively be provided by family and friends. It is for individuals recovering from an injury, illness, or disabled, chronically or terminally ill and is in need of skilled services. Northwoods Home Health provides a wide variety of clinical, social and supportive services to people of all ages. We provide both medical and non-medical assisted living services and hospice support.

What types of specific services and staff is
available?

Northwoods Home Health provides an array of home health medical and personal care services, including:
   • Nurses who provide assessment, instruction and help with proper healing, disease and medication management, and pain and symptom control.
   • Physical, occupational and speech therapists who develop a coordinated rehabilitation plan based on the patients needs.
   • Our social workers evaluate the social and emotional factors affecting individuals with illnesses and disabilities.
   • Home health aides help patients with activities of daily living.
   • Homemakers perform light household duties and provide friendship and emotional support for many people who live alone.
• We provide services to 24 communities in the North Country.

Do I have to be under the care of a physician
to get home healthcare services?

Yes.
From the onset your physician partners with Northwoods Home Health to develop your individualized care plan. Your physician periodically reviews the plan, tailors it as needed, to ensure that your health care needs are being met.

Do you use technology to monitor home
healthcare patients?

Northwoods Home Health offers patients and their primary care physicians the latest technology to monitor patients at home. It’s called telehealth and it allows patients to play an active role in their own health by taking vital signs on a daily basis. The results are automatically transmitted to a secure web-based server through an inhome communication device. This information keeps clinicians informed of immediate patient needs and identifies high-risk patients for early intervention.

Who Pays for Home Healthcare?

Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance and private pay sources cover or partially cover home care services. Eligibility and coverage for home healthcare services differs for each insurer and many have various plans and benefits for different groups. Individual plans may have deductibles, a co-pay or limits. Northwoods Home Healthcare works with individuals to determine appropriate available services.