Questions families ask

Home health is short visits: a nurse comes for an hour to check a wound or give a treatment. Private duty nursing is continuous care in shifts, often four to sixteen hours, for a child who needs skilled monitoring through the day or night.

They deliver the skilled care your child’s physician has ordered: airway and tracheostomy care, ventilator management, tube feeds, medication, seizure response and continuous assessment, while your child stays at home and your family keeps its routine.

Broadly, children whose medical needs require a licensed nurse rather than a caregiver: for example airway, ventilator, feeding tube or seizure care. Your child’s physician documents the need and the payer authorizes the hours.

Overnight nursing is common for children who need airway monitoring, ventilator support or seizure watching, and it is often the shift that matters most, because it is what lets parents sleep. Availability depends on authorized hours and staffing.

That is set by your child’s physician’s orders and the payer’s authorization, not by the agency. If the authorized hours do not match what your child needs, your physician and case manager are the people who can change that.

Through a planned discharge: authorized nursing hours, equipment delivered and tested at home, supplies in place, and family training completed before the date. Start the conversation weeks ahead, because each of those has its own timeline.

No. CCPS is pediatric: infants, children and adolescents. Keeping that focus is what lets our nurses hold pediatric competencies rather than spreading across every kind of care.

We tell you as early as we know and try to cover the shift. We will not pretend gaps never happen in this industry. What we can control is telling you honestly and quickly, so you can plan.

Yes. Tell us at the first conversation. Language is how instructions are understood and how questions get asked. We treat it as a clinical matter, not a preference.

You should not be billed for authorized nursing hours covered by your plan. If anyone tells you otherwise, ask for it in writing before agreeing to anything.