Home Health and Hospice Care

Home health and hospice offers a wide range of compassionate care when you need services in your home or at the end of life.

Home health

The criteria that make a beneficiary eligible for home health care is defined by Medicare and most insurances as:

"Skilled care, ordered by a physician, to a homebound individual, intermittently and for a short duration, after acute illness or an exacerbation of chronic illness, in a safe environment."

An individual is considered homebound if leaving home requires taxing effort, the help of another individual or the use of an assistive device. It is usually due to illness or injury that an individual’s ability to leave home is restricted. In general, time away from home should be of short duration and infrequent.

Home health services available throughout Northwestern Medicine include:

Home Health in the Western Suburbs

Home Health Downtown (Academic Medical Center)

Home Health in Greater DeKalb County

Hospice

Hospice is a philosophy of care that accepts death as the final stage of life. The goal of hospice is to enable patients to continue an alert, pain-free life and to manage other symptoms so that their last days may be spent with dignity and quality, surrounded by their loved ones. Hospice care assures patients that each day can be enjoyed in physical and emotional comfort.

Hospice care services available throughout Northwestern Medicine include:

Hospice Care in the Western Suburbs

Hospice Care Downtown (Academic Medical Center)

Hospice Care in Greater DeKalb County