Licensed Home Care Services Agency (LHCSA)

Licensed Home Care Service Agencies are authorized by New York State to provide home health care to patients, including everything from help with bathing to the administration of medications. Another New York State license certification for home health care is Certified Home Health Agencies or CHHA's.

Living Trust

A living trust is a legal arrangement that allows property you transfer into the trust during your life to pass directly to the beneficiaries (recipients) after you die, without court involvement. The successor trustee—the person you appoint to handle the trust after your death—simply transfers ownership to the beneficiaries you named in the trust. Living trusts are also called "inter vivos trusts."

Living Will

A living will is a written document that specifies the types of medical treatment desired by an individual. A living will can be very specific or very general.

The most common statement in a living will may be stated as: If I suffer an incurable, irreversible illness, disease, or condition and my attending physician determines that my condition is terminal, I direct that life-sustaining measures that would serve only to prolong my dying be withheld or discontinued.

More specific living wills may include information regarding an individual's desire for services like analgesia (pain relief), antibiotics, hydration, feeding, and the use of ventilators or cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Lombardi Program

The Visiting Nurse Service of New York’s Lombardi Program, which is also known as the Long-Term Home Health Care or the Nursing Home Without Walls program, provides comprehensive, coordinated care in the home for the Medicaid eligible chronically ill and disabled who are qualified to enter a nursing home, but prefer to remain in their homes. In addition to receiving home nursing care, Lombardi participants receive assistance from home health aides and are often provided with social day care, home-delivered meals and transportation to and from medical appointments. (The Lombardi program is named after Tarky Lombardi, the New York State senator who championed the health care bill that made the program possible.)