If you are cared for at home by relatives, friends or a care service, you are entitled to care aids. These are intended to make home care easier, help alleviate your symptoms or enable you to lead a more independent life. You do not need a doctor's prescription for care aids, but you do need a recognized care degree and an application to your care insurance fund. Your care insurance fund is affiliated to your statutory health insurance fund. You can therefore use the same contact details.

Care aids such as disposable gloves, disinfectants or absorbent bed pads are used on a daily basis and can only be used once. Your care insurance fund pays a lump sum of up to EUR 40.00 per month for such products.

Reusable technical care aids such as care beds, shower trolleys or home emergency call systems are normally provided by your care insurance fund on loan and free of charge. For new purchases, you pay a co-payment of 10 percent, up to a maximum of EUR 25.00.

In practice, you often do not have to make the initial application for care aids yourself. The medical service, which prepares an expert opinion on your need for care, usually also informs your care insurance fund whether and which care aids are required. If you agree, this is also considered an application.
Furthermore, care professionals can make specific recommendations on the provision of aids and care aids as part of the provision of care benefits in kind, home nursing care, outpatient intensive care and advice in the home of the person in need of care. These recommendations also count as an application. Many mail-order companies and medical supply stores that specialize in care aids will also take care of the application process for you.

If you submit the application yourself or have an authorized person do so, please state which care aids you require each month. Subsequent changes to the type and quantity of products are possible. As a rule, you only have to apply once for the costs to be covered. However, some care insurance funds only approve care aids for a limited period of time, for example for 1 year.

You can find out which products are considered care aids and are therefore eligible for reimbursement or a loan in the list of care aids published by the GKV-Spitzenverband, the central lobby of the statutory health and care insurance funds in Germany.