Home Health Aide

[palumbo]

Is it legal to work as a home health aide in NY without being certified?

[herbg76]

To call yourself a home health aide in NYS is to have a certificate that you have completed a training program, provided by an agency that has the right to conduct appropriate training and to issue certificates upon satisfactory completion of the course. There are many home health agencies that advertise the training and hiring opportunities in local newspapers. To represent yourself as a home health aide, without holding a certificate, would be to commit fraud. (Tasks provided to home health care patients may include those that require the supervision of the aide's direct supervisor, a visiting registered nurse!)

[Agnetha Irena]

Nursing and psychiatric aides help care for physically or mentally ill, injured, disabled, or infirm individuals in hospitals, nursing care facilities, and mental health settings. Home health aides have duties that are similar, but they work in patients’ homes or residential care facilities. Nursing aides and home health aides are among the occupations commonly referred to as direct care workers, due to their role in working with patients who need long-term care. The specific care they give depends on their specialty.