Good day everyone and welcome to the Wellsprings Home Care Podcast. I’ll be your host, Justin Currie. I am the owner and also a certified Senior Care Manager here at Wellsprings Home Care and Wellsprings main office is located in Exton, Pennsylvania. We serve the counties of Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester.
What wellsprings does is provides non-medical home care services to seniors predominantly, but also those with disabilities. And one thing we wanted to point out today is that we’re really proud to announce that SeniorAdvisor.com has actually named Wellsprings one a 2020’s Best of Home Care awards. And what that is, is it’s actually given out to the top 2 to 3% of home care providers nationwide. So obviously that’s an honor for us to get that award and we’re super excited about it and we’re really proud of our team over here at Wellsprings and we can’t wait start working on 2021 and hopefully take the award home again.
On today’s topic is, Will Medicaid pay for In-Home Care? So that’s a question a lot of you have, there’s a lot of gray area with Medicaid. It’s a government program.
So first of all we’ll jump into what is Medicaid. Medicaid essentially it provides health coverage to Americans. And typically what this is, is it’s low income individuals and those that basically they can’t always pay for Medicare premiums and things like that. That’s where Medicaid comes into play in. It’s for essentially any adult, pregnant women, those with disabilities, children, anybody who needs assistance at home and does not have the financial backing to pay for that themselves. Medicaid is funded by both the state and the federal government so they work in partnership to fund that program.
So in short, will Medicaid pay for in home care services? And the short answer is yes, they’ll pay for non-medical home care services, but they’ll also pay for home health care, homemaker services, family and caregiver support, home and environmental accessibility modifications, medical equipment, nutrition, transportation. There’s a lot of different things that they can pay for depending on the waiver that you’ve applied for. And Medicaid pays for home care services because generally most people want to stay at home and obviously, that’s where they’re more comfortable. That’s where they want to be taken care of. And also because not everyone can go into a facility, there’s obviously only so much space in the facilities and people want to stay at home and it’s actually cheaper for them and for the individuals themselves and for the government for in home care.
So those are a few of the reasons is why Medicaid funds this and some of the waivers in Pennsylvania, there’s a lot of different ones, so it really depends on your own unique situation. But there is a lot of assistance out there, Wellsprings Home Care can provide assistance with Medicaid waivers. You can just get in contact with us I’ll leave our information at the end of the podcast here, but some of the waivers that you can apply for in Pennsylvania are, there’s a community living waiver, aging waiver attendant care waiver, independence waiver, adult community autism program, adult autism waiver, infants, toddlers and families waiver person, family directed support waiver, consolidated waiver, the Obra waiver and also the life waiver, which is living independence for the elderly program. So those are some of the waivers that you can apply for in PA.
So obviously it’s adaptable to different situations and people’s own personal situations. So there’s usually an option on there. If you are a low income individual, then there’s a lot of different options that might be able to help you out with funding.
Wellsprings home care services is an approved provider for Medicaid in Pennsylvania and we are approved by all three MCOs, which are Managed Care Organizations. So when you do get approved for a waiver, you’re going to have to choose a managed care organization who are essentially just all billing and claims and everything like that go through. There’s not a huge difference between the three MCOs but the three MCOs are Keystone First, UPMC and PA Health and Wellness, and Wellsprings is a provider for all three MCOs. So no matter which waiver you’re on, you can contact us and we should be able to help you out or at the very least point you in the right direction.
There’s different steps for obviously if you’re approved already by Medicaid or if you’re in the approval process. Some of the steps for someone who would already be approved would be to get in contact with Wellsprings and we can help guide you through the process or if you want, you can talk directly to your service coordinator and your service coordinator, well they’ll be in charge of allocating your hours and then also signing you up with a witch provider you choose to use. So if you choose to use Wellsprings, Homecare, Wellsprings as well as your service coordinator as well as yourself, we’ll all be in communication and we’ll allocate a certain amount of hours to your care. And that’s when Wellsprings will step in and screen and obviously, try and match you with one of our caregivers and hopefully start out service that way.
And the steps are obviously a little more extensive for those who have not yet been approved yet. It is an insurance program, so it can be a lengthy approval process depending on the individual situation. But the four different ways that you can apply is online. So you can actually go to the compass website, that’s just Compass in PA and you can apply online.
You can apply by telephone by calling 1-866–550–4355 or you can go in person down to one of the County assistance offices. Those are CAOs. And if you search those online, that’ll tell you kind of which one is nearest to you.
And the last would be on paper, but with on paper you would have to go to the department of human services website and they’ll actually have a form for you to fill out.
You can do a search for application for Medicaid waivers. I wouldn’t recommend on paper unless you have a really strong background with just with general knowledge of both the waivers. You definitely want somebody helping you out with that.
So that’s when you can get in touch with us and we can kind of guide you through the process and point you in the right direction.
So in summary for Will Medicaid pay for In-Home Care? The answer is yes. There are several different waiver options that you can apply for and obviously everyone has different requirements and different regulations that you have to meet in order to be approved for the waiver but they are all listed on the department of human services website and you can go there anytime or you can call us and we can definitely provide you the information.
And if you want to call us, you can call 610-463-0880 or you can go ahead and email us at info@wellspringshomecare.com .
So that’s all I have for you today. I hope that provides a little bit more information on Medicaid and if they will pay for home care services and also kind of how to go about obtaining the services or the approval depending on your situation. So thanks a lot for stopping by and as always, get in touch with us if you have any questions or concerns and we look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you.
