Discharged Friday. Nobody home until Monday. Post-surgery home care in New York City
The discharge papers assume somebody is there. A certified aide is that somebody: the walk to the bathroom, the incision, the medication schedule, the first steps. For most New York families Medicaid pays for all of it.
We will match a caregiver near home.
Care can start within 48 hours of your call.
Got it. Your request is with a coordinator, and we will call you back.
Your information is private and secure.
How soon can she be left alone? What post-surgery home care actually covers
Post-surgery home care is help at home during the weeks right after an operation: getting to the bathroom safely, washing without soaking the incision, keeping the medication schedule straight, cooking, and making sure the walking the surgeon ordered actually happens. In New York it is delivered by a certified aide working under a nurse-approved plan of care. Most families qualify through Medicaid and pay nothing.
Post-operative care at home, post-surgical home care, short term home care, post op care: different words, one job. Agencies and discharge planners in NYC use them interchangeably, and so do we on this page.
The hard part is rarely the surgery. It is the gap that opens the moment the hospital sends someone home. Discharge instructions are written as if a healthy adult is standing in the kitchen, free all week. Somebody has to be there when the anesthesia wears off and the first night arrives, and for the first nights some families add around the clock care at home rather than daytime hours only.
Recovery at home also goes better than recovery anywhere else, provided the help is real. People sleep in their own bed, eat their own food and move around rooms they know. What they need is not a facility. It is a person for a few weeks.
What to expect at home, week by week. Temporary care, usually two to six weeks
This is temporary help, usually two to six weeks. Needs change quickly after an operation: hours start high and come down as strength returns, which is why the plan is written by a nurse rather than sold as a package, and why it ends when the recovery does.
The first 48 hours
The riskiest window. Someone is groggy, unsteady and most likely to fall on the way to the bathroom at night. An aide handles transfers, watches for bleeding or a fever, and keeps the pain medication on schedule instead of on memory. Most families start care within 48 hours of the call from the hospital.
Week one
The incision gets checked daily for redness, swelling and drainage, because catching an infection early is the difference between antibiotics and readmission. Bathing happens without soaking the wound. Meals get cooked, since appetite after anesthesia is unreliable and healing needs protein.
Weeks two and three
Walking becomes the job. Surgeons prescribe it to prevent clots and pneumonia, and it is exactly what people skip when nobody is watching. The aide walks with them, holds the precautions after a knee or hip replacement, and keeps the household running so recovery is not competing with laundry.
Stepping down
Hours come down as independence returns. Some families stop here. Others keep a few hours a week, especially if the surgery revealed that living alone was already getting difficult. Our nurse reviews the plan and adjusts it rather than leaving it running.
Who watches for signs of infection, and where a nurse is required
An aide covers daily living and observation. Anything clinical, such as changing a wound dressing or running an IV, requires a licensed nurse and a physician order. We hold both licenses, so this does not mean bringing in a second agency.
A certified aide handles
- Getting to the bathroom, in and out of bed, up from a chair
- Bathing and dressing around the incision
- Reminding about medication and keeping the schedule
- Cooking, laundry, keeping the apartment clean
- Walking with the patient as the surgeon ordered
- Watching the incision and reporting changes to the nurse
- Going along to follow-up appointments
A licensed nurse is required for
- Changing wound dressings and packing
- Injections and IV therapy
- Catheter and drain care
- Administering medication rather than reminding
- Assessing a wound that looks infected
Need the clinical side too? Private duty nursing at home →
If the surgeon also ordered physical or speech therapy, we are licensed for that as well. An agency without therapy on its license has to hand you off to somebody else in the middle of a recovery, which is the last thing anyone needs in week two.
What an aide may and may not do follows the New York State home care professional standards, and our operating certificate is public in the NYS Health Profiles registry.
Will Medicare pay for home care after surgery?
Partly, and this is where most families get caught out. Medicare covers short-term skilled care ordered by a physician, such as nursing visits or therapy, when the patient is homebound. It does not pay for an aide to help with bathing, meals and the bathroom, which is the help people actually need for those first weeks. In New York, that part is covered by Medicaid.
Medicaid and MLTC
Covers the aide: daily living, observation, help around the home. For eligible New Yorkers this is the part that pays for the actual weeks of recovery. Once she has Medicaid, the hours are authorized in 3 to 6 weeks, so families often begin private pay and switch the same caregiver over once they come through.
$0 for most familiesMedicare
Covers skilled and short-term care only: nursing visits, physical or speech therapy, ordered by a physician for a homebound patient. It does not cover an aide for daily living. Details are on Medicare.gov.
Short-term, clinical onlyPrivate pay
Nothing to apply for and nothing to wait for. You set the hours, an aide can start within 48 hours, and if Medicaid comes through later the billing moves across without changing the person at the door. A licensed nurse, for anything the surgeon ordered, is $95 an hour.
From $32 an hourWaiting on an approval while somebody is being discharged this week is the common case, not the exception. Private pay home care starts within days and moves onto Medicaid hours later without changing the person who comes to the door. If you are not sure which applies, call and we will check eligibility for free.
Hours and eligibility are set under the New York State Personal Care Services program, and the assessment itself runs through the New York Independent Assessor Program.
What if there is nobody to care for you after surgery?
Hospitals will not discharge some patients without a responsible adult at home, and surgery centers will not begin an anesthetic procedure unless somebody is taking the patient home afterwards. A hired caregiver satisfies both. In New York, care can start within 48 hours, and for Medicaid-eligible patients it costs the family nothing.
This comes up more often than people expect. Adult children work. Spouses are elderly themselves. Friends can drive once but not stay a fortnight. Nobody plans for it, because the surgery date is what everyone is thinking about, and the question of who will be home surfaces two days before.
If the only problem is getting to and from the procedure, that is a smaller job: medical escort covers the ride and the waiting room. If the recovery itself needs covering, that is an aide, and it is worth calling before the discharge date rather than after.
We will match a caregiver near home.
Care can start within 48 hours of your call.
Got it. Your request is with a coordinator, and we will call you back.
Your information is private and secure.
Families who called us in a hurry
“I just found this place, needed someone for my mom to be taken care of. Very good, caring, professional people work here. Highly recommend.”
“The intake process was smooth and the coordinator walked me through every step of the Medicaid approval. I felt supported the whole time.”
“I really like the agency. A nice caregiver named Jessica works here, who constantly looks after my grandmother at home. The agency is good, the staff is good.”
The short answers, in one place
- How long it lasts
- Temporary, usually two to six weeks. Longer after a knee or hip replacement
- Who pays
- Medicaid or an MLTC plan. Most families pay $0 out of pocket
- Not paid by
- Medicare, for an aide. It covers short skilled visits only
- Without Medicaid
- Private pay, from $32 an hour. How it works →
- How fast it starts
- Private pay within 48 hours. Medicaid hours in 3 to 6 weeks
- An aide can
- Bathroom, bathing around the incision, meals, medication reminders, first walks
- A nurse is needed
- Dressing changes, injections, IV, catheter and drain care
- Just the ride home
- A medical escort covers the trip and the waiting room
- Counties served
- Kings, Queens, New York, Bronx, Richmond, Nassau
- Licence
- NY DOH License #2572L001, an LHCSA. Verify →
Last updated .
Questions families ask before they call
What if there is nobody to care for you after surgery?
Will Medicare pay for home care after surgery?
How long do you need home care after surgery?
How to care for someone at home after surgery?
Can an aide change my dressing after surgery?
How much does home care after surgery cost?
Can I get home care for just a few weeks after surgery?
How quickly can home care start after a hospital discharge?
Discharged this week, with nobody home?
Tell us the date and the situation. A nurse will tell you how many hours you are likely to need, whether Medicaid is likely to cover it, and how fast we can start. No cost, no obligation.