Who makes up the home health care team?

Caring for communities

When the next step in your recovery is home health care, it can feel overwhelming to know that people you’ve never met will be coming to your home to provide care. Home health care teams are not just one nurse or therapist but instead a whole range of different, skilled individuals who work with patients to deliver high-quality, comprehensive care.

Knowing what to expect of your home health care team – and what each person’s role is – can help you or your loved one feel more prepared as you begin your home health journey.

What is home health?

Home health is designed to meet patients where they are. Whether it’s recovering from a surgery or recent hospital stay, or managing a disease or injury, home health helps patients achieve what’s most important to them in the comfort of home.


Home health services include:

  • Skilled nursing
  • Occupational therapy
  • Physical therapy
  • Speech therapy
  • Medical social work
  • Home health aides

Medicare covers home health services as long as you choose a Medicare-certified agency, have a need for skilled services and have been certified as homebound by your physician. Read more about how you qualify for home health coverage under Medicare here

What is an interdisciplinary approach on a home health care team?

Medicare covers an “interdisciplinary” care team for home health services. This means that the people providing high-quality home health care come from different fields and educational backgrounds. When varying disciplines come together, patients receive comprehensive care that helps them reach their specific goals.

“The home health care team has individuals who are specialists in their fields,” Brandi Evans, director of home health clinical excellence at Enhabit Home Health & Hospice, said. “When they put their talents and skills together, our patients receive comprehensive interdisciplinary care and that leads to the best possible outcomes and experiences.”

Home health care teams have skilled nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, social workers and aides. Each person uses a coordinated approach to deliver specialized care in the comfort of home.

Who makes up the home health care team?

When beginning home health services, you may meet a lot of new faces. From nurses to social workers to home health aides, there are many different people on the home health care team.

At Enhabit, our home health care teams are made up of the following skilled individuals.

Nursing staff

Home health nurses are a critical part of the home health care team. Through their skilled nursing services, they provide treatment and education to help patients manage and understand medical diagnoses, medications and nutrition.

Read more about what a home health nurse does.

Physical therapists

When a patient is experiencing limited mobility due to an injury or surgery, physical therapists are the ones who will help gain back strength and flexibility. They work with patients to improve mobility, adjust to adaptive equipment and increase balance.

Read more about what a home health physical therapist does.

Occupational therapists

Another form of therapy is occupational therapy, which incorporates everyday activities to help patients reach their specific goals. Occupational therapists provide treatment to improve patients’ abilities to perform daily tasks safely and independently.  

Read more about what a home health occupational therapist does.

Speech therapists

Speech therapy can help if a patient is in recovery from a stroke or traumatic brain injury, or learning how to manage a condition like Parkinson’s disease. Speech-language pathologists work with patients to improve language skills, mental processing and swallowing to facilitate independence.

Read more about what a home health speech-language pathologist does.

Medical social workers

While clinicians focus on providing treatment directly to a patient, medical social workers evaluate the emotional and social needs of patients and their loved ones to connect them to short-term counseling and community resources.

Home health aides

Home health aides work with nurses and therapists to monitor vital signs and assist patients with activities of daily living (ADLs) including bathing, eating and grooming.

While home health aides do assist with personal care, it is important to note that for a patient to be eligible for home health care coverage through Medicare, they must have a skilled need and be considered homebound by their physician. If these criteria are met and the physician determines aide services are needed, patients can add a home health aide to their care team.

Read more about home health aides.

The home health care team comes together

As a patient recovers from an injury or learns to self-manage their condition, there may be challenges faced along the way. However, the Enhabit team is there to adapt and ultimately help patients achieve what is most important to them.

Learn more about how Enhabit’s team came together to help a home health patient reach his unique goal of being able to eat a donut again.

“At Enhabit, what matters most to our patients also matters most to us,” Evans said. “No matter how big or small a patient’s goal may be, the home health care team works across disciplines to expand what’s possible and achieve that goal.”