When a patient is discharged from the hospital, he might be sent to a Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) instead of going home. … While long-term care is considered to be supportive in nature, skilled nursing is generally designed to rehabilitate a patient so that he can return home if at all possible.

Home-based long-term care includes health, personal, and support services to help people stay at home and live as independently as possible. … In-home services may be short-term—for someone who is recovering from an operation, for example—or long-term, for people who need ongoing help.

What is long term care? Long term care refers to assisted living where a senior needs the assistance of a caregiver for activities of daily living, such as eating, bathing, and taking oral medications at the correct time, in addition to ongoing access to licensed medical care.

Long term care is focused on individualized and coordinated services that promote independence, maximize patients’ quality of life, and meet patients’ needs over a period of time.