The short answer Nebraska licenses home health agencies under the Health Care Facility Licensure Act; the license centers on skilled services, and there is no distinct non-medical home care license category.
What Nebraska requires
Nebraska
Licensing agency. The Nebraska DHHS Division of Public Health, Licensure Unit, licenses home health agencies under the Health Care Facility Licensure Act (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 71-401 et seq.) and 175 NAC 14.
Source ↗
Scope caution. Nebraska's home health agency definition is built around skilled nursing/therapeutic services; agencies providing only companion, homemaker, or attendant care generally fall outside it and are not licensed, though they must meet the statutory in-home personal services worker standards (age, registry checks, training) in Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 71-6501 to 71-6504 — confirm scope questions with the DHHS Licensure Unit before operating unlicensed.
Source ↗
Renewal and surveys. Home health licenses renew annually; DHHS performs initial licensure inspections, renewal surveys, and complaint investigations, and acts as the CMS certification survey agency.
Source ↗
Worker registry. Nebraska maintains nurse aide and Adult Protective Services/child abuse registry checks that licensed agencies must run on direct care staff before hire.
Source ↗
☆ Rules change. We watch them for you.
Get one short email when Nebraska's home care requirements change. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Reviewed quarterly by Vitable Health.
The federal baseline (applies in every state)
Federal
No federal home care license. There is no federal license for home care or home health agencies. Licensure is a state function: each state (and DC) decides whether and how to license home health agencies and non-medical personal care/companion agencies, so requirements vary dramatically by jurisdiction.
Source ↗
Medicare certification (42 CFR Part 484). Agencies that bill Medicare for skilled home health must be certified as meeting the Medicare Conditions of Participation at 42 CFR Part 484 (patient rights, comprehensive assessment, QAPI, skilled professional services, home health aide standards, and more), on top of any state license.
Source ↗
Accreditation with deemed status. Most new Medicare home health agencies obtain certification through a CMS-approved accrediting organization with deeming authority — ACHC, CHAP, or The Joint Commission — whose surveys substitute for the state agency's Medicare certification survey.
Source ↗
State survey agencies enforce both. State survey agencies (usually the state health department) operate under agreements with CMS to survey Medicare-certified agencies, and most also run the state licensure survey program — initial surveys, renewal/recertification surveys, complaint investigations, and plan-of-correction enforcement per the CMS State Operations Manual.
Source ↗
Primary sources for this page
More Nebraska guides