Questions families ask us

Hands-on help with everyday life rather than clinical treatment: bathing and dressing, meal preparation, medication reminders, light housekeeping, mobility support and companionship. It is delivered at home by a trained caregiver, and it does not involve nursing procedures or prescribing.

Older adults who want to stay in their own home, people recovering after a hospital stay, adults with a disability who need help with daily activities, and the family members doing most of the caring who need reliable cover. Most families start with a few hours a week and adjust from there.

We provide non-medical personal care support: bathing and hygiene assistance, dressing, toileting, mobility and transfer help, companionship, respite care for family caregivers, medication reminders and meal preparation.

We do not provide skilled nursing, wound care, injections, therapy or clinical medication administration. Those are home health care, which is ordered by a doctor and delivered by licensed clinicians. If that is what your family needs, we will say so and help you find a licensed home health provider.

Home care is non-medical help with daily living, which is what Cyanjel provides. Home health care is skilled clinical care ordered by a doctor: nursing, wound care, physical or occupational therapy. They are licensed differently in Pennsylvania and paid for differently. Medicare covers short-term home health after illness or surgery, but generally does not cover ongoing home care. We explain the difference in detail here.

Yes. We provide personal care, companionship and respite care to Community HealthChoices (CHC) participants in Allegheny County. CHC is Pennsylvania's Medicaid managed long-term care program for adults 21 and over who need a nursing-facility level of care but want to stay at home. Once a participant is enrolled with a CHC plan, the participant chooses the home care agency, and Cyanjel can be that agency. How CHC works, step by step.

In many cases, yes. Under Community HealthChoices a participant can choose who provides their care, and that can include an adult child, sibling, grandchild or other relative who is hired, screened and trained as a caregiver through a licensed agency such as Cyanjel and paid for the hours the plan authorizes. The CHC waiver will not pay a participant's spouse, legal guardian, power of attorney or representative payee, and a relative must meet the same background-check, training and health-screening standards as any other caregiver. The participant has to be enrolled in CHC with hours authorized first. Call us and we will walk through your situation honestly, or ask the Independent Enrollment Broker (1-877-550-4227) or the participant's service coordinator directly.

Generally no. Medicare pays for short-term, doctor-ordered skilled home health care after illness or surgery. It does not pay for ongoing help with bathing, dressing, meals or companionship. What Medicare does and does not cover at home.

Yes. Many families pay privately, often for a few hours a week, with hours changing as needs change. Long-term care insurance policies frequently cover non-medical home care, and wartime veterans or surviving spouses may qualify for VA Aid and Attendance, which can be put toward care at home. We will help you work out what applies, and point you to the right office when it is not us.

Yes. Every caregiver is background-checked, trained, and re-certified through our own annual training program before and while they work with families, not simply hired and sent out.

That is what we aim for, because consistency is a large part of what makes home care work. We match a caregiver to your family and keep that pairing wherever scheduling allows, with a familiar backup for holidays and illness. If the match is wrong, we change it.

Every visit is recorded through Electronic Visit Verification (EVV), the system Pennsylvania requires for Medicaid-funded personal care, which confirms the caregiver, the time and the location. Families also hear from us when something has changed. What EVV means for families.

Our Pittsburgh office, during working hours, Monday to Friday 10:00am to 5:00pm. Questions, schedule changes and concerns go to people who know your family's plan, not a call center in another state.

It starts with a call and a free in-home assessment. Once the plan is agreed and a caregiver is matched, care usually begins within days. Call (888) 772-5460 and we will tell you honestly what we can do and when.

A care plan comes out of the in-home assessment and the conversation around it, then changes as circumstances change. Hours can be increased, reduced or rescheduled; contact the office and we will work the change through with you.

Fewer than they expect. A few mornings a week is a perfectly normal place to start, because the start of the day is where most of the difficulty sits. We will tell you when you need less, and when you need something we do not provide.

We serve Pittsburgh, Whitehall, Baldwin, Brentwood, Pleasant Hills, Jefferson Hills, West Mifflin and Bethel Park in Allegheny County, from our office at 90 Clairton Blvd, STE 09, Pittsburgh, PA 15236. Coverage depends on the specific street rather than the borough name, so call (888) 772-5460 and we will confirm at your address. See every community we serve.

Our confirmed coverage is the South Hills communities listed above. If you are elsewhere in Allegheny County or just beyond it, call with the address; we would rather say no plainly than promise a visit window we cannot hold to.