Guide · Scope
Wound care, injections and IV therapy, catheter and ostomy care beyond simple assistance, physical/occupational/speech therapy, skilled nursing assessments and care-plan changes: these are skilled services. They run under physician orders, delivered or supervised by licensed clinicians, inside a home health agency license — in every state.
Home health adds what non-medical never touches: clinical staffing and supervision, physician-order workflows, and — for Medicare billing — federal certification with a pre-certification survey, a minimum patient census before that survey, and capital-reserve expectations. Startup figures in diligence ran $150,000–$350,000 for the Medicare-certified lane, a different universe from a non-medical opening.
Most founders reading this site mean the non-medical business. The skilled door matters to you for two reasons: to recognize when a client's needs have crossed it (your duty is referral, not improvisation), and because a few states gate the skilled door itself — California's June 2026 moratorium on new home health licenses is the live example on the closed-doors tracker.
Dataset pages behind this guide: California state page · the full 50-state dataset (checked October 22, 2026).
Guides are general; verdicts are specific. The license checker applies your state's rules to your service mix, and the cost calculator prices your opening from the same dataset this guide cites.
The free checkers give you the verdict and the number. The Kit gives you the working papers: your state's application packet walked through in filing order, the policies-and-procedures binder spec (what your binder must contain — never a boilerplate binder), the administrator self-audit, the insurance & bond spec sheet, the Medicaid gate map, the franchise-vs-independent 10-year worksheets, and the payroll-runway planner.
$49 one-time payment
Included in the $49 HomeCareLicenseCheck Kit
