Many people don’t realize they can hire a registered nurse outside of traditional home health nursing covered by their insurance. When insurance will not pay for home health, or when the services don’t feel sufficient, the best way to care for yourself or your loved one might be to hire a private duty nurse directly through a concierge nurse company.
Many people have heard the terms “home health nurse” and “private duty nurse,” often used interchangeably and assumed to be the same thing. However, there are notable differences between the two that are important to understand before you choose a nursing service for yourself or your loved ones’ care needs.
Let’s explore the substantial benefits of private duty nursing care compared to traditional home health nursing care.
Private Duty Nursing vs. Home Health Care: Who Pays for What?
If your medical provider deems that you require additional support after leaving a hospital, your insurance is required to provide you with that support, and the hospital must arrange for it before you are discharged.
However, you must meet certain criteria to qualify for any home health care, whether nursing services, therapy services, or a combination of a few services. Unfortunately, these criteria result in about half of all people discharged from hospitals not qualifying for home health care despite really needing support.
For those whose insurance covers home health care, the type of insurance you have impacts the type of support provided. For example, someone who is younger and healthy with private insurance may qualify for daily nursing visits, but a frail older adult with cancer on Medicare may only qualify for one visit per week – crazy, right?
In either case, people’s experience of home health nursing funded by their insurance provider is medically driven, task-orientated, and designed for short-term support from acute illness or injury. While the RNs provide more assistance than a home caregiver, these nurses often lack specialized expertise and simply go through the motions without caring for the whole person. Because of the lack of emphasis on holistic care, traditional home health care recipients often feel like they are a number or a tick box. This is the exact reason why many seek additional support from private duty nurses despite qualifying for home health from their insurance.
While private duty nursing falls within home health care, it is privately funded. This instantly removes insurance-related limitations that underpin “tick-box” care, shifts the focus to holistically caring for the person, and places individuals back in the center of their health care journey.
Private duty nursing allows you and your loved ones to be in the driver’s seat.
Navi Nurses, a leading concierge nurse company in Phoenix, is committed to redefining private duty nursing. With a transparent self-pay model, registered nurses (RNs) deliver the compassionate and coordinated care that you and your loved ones deserve and need in acute recovery and beyond. It’s the care you have always dreamed of but didn’t know existed!
Private Duty Nursing vs. Home Health Care: Why Advanced Skills Matter
While all RNs hold the same license, their skills and expertise vary depending on the length of time they have practiced, their specialized areas of practice, and the health care settings they have worked in.
Home health nurses often have a limited skill set geared toward tasks supporting recovery from short-term illness or injury. These typically include:
- Administering medications
- Taking vital signs
- Collecting samples for testing
- Monitoring wounds
In contrast, private duty nurses can have a much more extensive skill set geared to supporting a person’s needs at all stages of their healthcare journey.
While this is not true for all private duty nursing companies, nurses who work at Navi are often still actively working in hospitals and have experience in 18+ specialized areas, meaning their skill set remains up to date with evolving clinical knowledge at every stage, including:
- Post-surgery
- Aging in place
- End-of-life and palliative care
- Complex or chronic care needs
Because the RN network is incredibly diverse, it’s impossible to list everything they can help you with — but here is a rough guide of what a visit from a Navi private duty nurse can involve:
- Tube feeding/enteral nutrition
- Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN)
- Wound care
- Pain management
- IV antibiotics
- Peritoneal dialysis
- Ventilator and tracheostomy care
- Monitoring and care after organ or bone marrow transplant
- Catheter care
- Drain care
- Ostomy care
- Medication organization
- Health assessments and health maintenance
- Preventative care
What’s more, the breadth of a Navi nurse’s clinical experience means they bring another layer of “soft” skills to the role. Including:
- Education and support of patients, family members, and caregivers
- Motivational goal setting
- Health care system navigation and guidance
- Collaboration with other health care providers and care team members
- Advocating patients’ needs with physicians and systems
At Navi, the skills offered by these private duty nurses are of the highest standards in Arizona. All RNs have worked at least four years in hospitals and other inpatient settings.
They are actively engaged in professional development, ensuring the clinical knowledge they bring to your home is current, up-to-date, relevant, and cutting-edge, benefiting you and your loved ones. They are the nurses we would want to care for us or our own loved ones.
Navi also strategically matches nurses’ experiences to clients’ health issues, closely aligning skill sets to the problems at hand for optimal outcomes. And, for those with multiple health concerns, you will experience a curated team of Navi nurses intended to provide you with care that encompasses all your major needs.
Two (or more) heads are better than one, so your team of nurses will collaborate and brainstorm recommendations to ensure nothing is missed.
The advanced skills of Navi’s private duty nurse network makes it the perfect conduit between the health care system and the patient. These experts place the person at the center of care, ensuring they reach their goals while providing health care to the person in the way it should be experienced!
Private Duty Nursing vs. Home Health Care: The Importance of Person-Centered Care
Nothing feels more incredible than returning home from the hospital to the lifestyle and routine that matters most to you. You are no longer woken up in the middle of the night for vitals, poked for labs early in the morning, and told when to take your medications or when you can shower.
While you may qualify for insurance-covered home health nursing services, the provision of these services means you will still be on their schedule despite being at home. Then try fitting in medical follow-up appointments and adjunct therapies, and soon, you will find that you are on a medicalized schedule, not your schedule, in your own home.
Additionally, there can be a waiting period for services to commence, and when they do, they consist of short visits often focused on one task or goal to drive recovery forward linearly and hastily. This can feel very impersonal and, overall, leave you feeling like home health nursing is imposing on your lifestyle while not really giving you the care you need.
Private duty nurse visits with Navi are the exact reverse of this. We know how great it is to be at home, sleeping in your own bed, seeing your children or grandchildren in their sports matches, or going back to church and being surrounded by your community.
The flexible and empowering care model fits around your daily routines, is adaptive to changes, and ensures the human checklist, not an insurance checklist, defines when care is scheduled. RNs are often available the same day — within hours — whenever you need them.
Hire a Private Duty Nurse for Whole-Person Care Without Insurance Obstacles
When choosing if you would like to supplement your care with private duty nursing, understanding how it provides a superior experience with improved outcomes is essential to making the right decision.
While important, traditional home health care often has limitations due to insurance restrictions and a focus on short-term, task-oriented support. In contrast, private duty nursing offers a more comprehensive approach, with advanced skills and a flexible, patient-centered model. It adapts to individual needs and builds long-term, collaborative care relationships.
Although your insurance typically covers traditional home health, your financial investment in hiring a private duty nurse is a priceless investment in yourself in recovery and beyond. It provides the support you need to recover faster and avoid unwanted complications and costly returns to the hospital, keeping in mind that every complication has physical, mental, emotional, and financial knock-on effects.
At Navi, experienced home RNs are committed to offering personalized care that aligns your wants and preferences with our care style.
Redefining private duty nursing across Arizona, Navi Nurses puts you and your loved ones at the center of your health care journey, fits seamlessly into your daily life, and ensures you receive the medical support you need throughout recovery and beyond.
Hire Navi Nurses for home care on your terms and to build your co-created care plan. Call us at (480) 630-0808 or reach out today. You’ll be heard by a medical professional right away.
