Ontario Home Care Services: What's Covered, How to Apply, and Service Limits

What Publicly Funded Home Care Covers

Under the Connecting Care Act, 2019, Ontario Health atHome coordinates publicly funded home care. For people who qualify through the clinical assessment, those services are covered by OHIP — with no co-payments, means test, or income threshold.

The core services available:

• Personal support — bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, transfers, mobility assistance, and meal preparation delivered by Personal Support Workers (PSWs)
• Professional nursing — wound care, IV therapy, medication administration, catheter management, and clinical monitoring by Registered Nurses and Registered Practical Nurses
• Physiotherapy and occupational therapy — rehabilitation after surgery or hospitalization, mobility training, and home safety assessments
• Speech-language pathology — swallowing assessments and communication therapy
• Social work — counselling, crisis support, and system navigation
• Dietitian services — nutritional assessments for seniors with complex dietary needs
• Medical supplies and equipment — some supplies related to nursing care are covered

These services are delivered by Service Provider Organizations (SPOs) assigned by Ontario Health atHome based on your parent's location. You do not choose the provider — the care coordinator assigns one.

How to Get a Referral

There is no application form, no online portal, and no PDF to download. Access to publicly funded home care goes entirely through a clinical assessment.

Anyone can start the process — you, your parent, a friend, a doctor. Call 310-2222 (no area code needed from anywhere in Ontario) or 1-833-515-1234. No physician referral is required.

Ontario Health atHome assigns a care coordinator who schedules an in-home visit. The coordinator uses the RAI-HC assessment tool to evaluate your parent's functional, cognitive, and medical needs. Based on the results, they build a care plan specifying the type and frequency of services.

Hospital patients can also be referred. If your parent is being discharged, the hospital social worker or discharge planner can initiate a referral directly to Ontario Health atHome, which often speeds up the process.

Service Limits You Need to Know

Publicly funded home care is not unlimited. The caps are clinical-needs-based, but the practical ceilings are important to understand:

• Personal support is generally capped at approximately 60 hours per month. For a parent who needs help with bathing, dressing, and transfers every morning and evening, that translates to about two hours per day — enough for basic support, but not enough for someone who needs supervision throughout the day.
• Nursing visits are typically limited to two visits per day.
• Therapy services are time-limited and goal-oriented — not ongoing.

If your parent's needs exceed these caps, the care coordinator may recommend supplementing with private home care (which costs $25 to $45 per hour for a PSW, or substantially more for nursing) or begin the long-term care eligibility assessment.

The care coordinator reassesses periodically. If your parent's condition worsens, request an immediate reassessment — do not wait for the scheduled review. A fall, a hospitalization, or a new diagnosis can change the care plan significantly.

The Transition From CCAC to Ontario Health atHome

If you are searching for your old Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) or Home and Community Care Support Services (HCCSS) office, you will not find it. Ontario amalgamated all 14 regional HCCSS organizations into Ontario Health atHome in 2024 under the Convenient Care at Home Act, 2023.

The services are the same. The intake phone numbers are the same. But the administrative structure is now centralized, and care coordinators are being integrated into local Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) across the province. If your parent was already receiving services, their care coordinator should remain the same — but if you have trouble reaching someone, call the central line at 310-2222.

When Home Care Is Not Enough

Public home care works well for parents who need a few hours of daily support and can be safely left alone between visits. It does not work for parents who wander, leave the stove on, fall repeatedly, or need assistance throughout the night.

If the care coordinator's assessment shows your parent's needs exceed community service limits, they will discuss long-term care eligibility. That opens a separate process — clinical eligibility determination, facility selection, and the provincial waitlist.

The Ontario Continuing Care Navigator walks through both pathways — home care and long-term care — with checklists for the intake call and a facility tour script, so you know exactly what to ask at each stage.

See more Ontario guides →