What a Home Health Aide Cannot Do in Massachusetts

A home health aide cannot administer medication, cannot perform nursing tasks such as changing a dressing or giving an injection, and cannot make clinical judgments about a medical problem. Our aides are trained, background checked and insured, and they are not nurses. Knowing exactly where that line sits is the difference between hiring the right service and paying for one that is not set up to do the thing you actually need.

Hands on help with daily living is aide work. The clinical tasks in this article are not.

Can a home health aide give medication?

No. Our aides do not administer medication. What they can do is be present while the client manages their own, remind them that it is time, bring the bottle and a glass of water, help if something goes wrong and call for help. The distinction is narrow but real. A reminder and a glass of water is aide work. Measuring a dose, sorting pills into a box as a clinical task, or putting the pill in someone's mouth is not.

Can an aide give insulin or any injection?

No. Insulin is the question families ask most, and the answer does not change because the client has been doing it themselves for thirty years. An aide does not draw up a dose, does not inject, and does not decide whether a reading calls for more or less. A client who manages their own insulin can keep doing that with an aide in the room. If the injection has to be given by someone else, that is nursing. We go through this in detail on our page on whether an aide can give insulin.

Can an aide change a dressing or a wound bandage?

No. Wound care is nursing work, and that includes changing a dressing, packing a wound, removing stitches or staples, and judging whether a wound is healing or infected. An aide can keep the area clean and dry in the ordinary everyday sense, can help the client get into a position where a nurse can work, and can report what they see to you or to the nurse. Deciding what the wound needs is not theirs to do.

Can an aide decide whether to call the doctor?

No, and this is the limit families overlook most. An aide does not make clinical judgments. They observe and report: she did not eat today, the leg looks more swollen than yesterday, there were two falls this week. That report goes to the family, the nurse or the doctor, and someone with clinical training decides what it means. Every visit our aides work is logged in MyCase, our own coordination platform, so you can see who came, when they arrived and what they reported instead of taking it on trust.

So what can a home health aide actually do?

Most of what keeps someone in their own home.

• Bathing, dressing, grooming and toileting
• Transfers, walking support and standing by while someone moves around the house
• Meals, laundry, light housekeeping and changing the bed
• Groceries, errands and getting to appointments
• Company, phone calls and keeping an eye on how someone is doing day to day

Our page on daily living activities compared with household tasks breaks down which is which, and it matters because insurance and benefit programs usually trigger on the first group and not the second.

Who do you call for the tasks an aide cannot do?

A nurse, and you may be able to get one at no cost to you first. If a doctor has ordered skilled care, a Medicare certified home health agency may cover nurse visits under a home health plan of care, so ask the doctor for that referral and confirm coverage before you pay anything out of pocket. Your local Council on Aging and the regional Aging Services Access Point can also point you toward state funded options. We provide skilled nursing as a separate service, priced separately, for when you need a nurse on your own schedule rather than on an agency's visit calendar.

What does home health aide care cost?

$45 an hour, one to eight hours a day, with no minimum contract, no assessment fee and no four hour minimum per visit. Three hours twice a week runs about $1,170 a month. Three hours a day is about $4,095 and eight hours a day about $10,900. An overnight is $540 for a twelve hour night. Plenty of agencies will not quote a number until after a paid assessment, and many require a four hour visit minimum or a twenty hour weekly minimum, which is how a two hour need turns into a four hour bill. We publish our rates because you should be able to compare before anyone sets foot in your house. Before you sign with any agency, including us, our list of twelve questions to ask a home care agency is worth ten minutes.

How do you start?

Call 781 957 8076 or email info@careremedyinc.com and tell us what the days actually look like. Offices in Woburn, Springfield and Brockton, serving communities across Massachusetts.

This page describes how Care Remedy staffs home health aide care and is not medical or legal advice. Confirm what your own situation needs with the client's doctor or nurse.