High-tech nurses require certification in i.v. skills from a hospital, college or home-care company.

The Government is also challenging a practice among some home-care companies of paying doctors to monitor therapy for the companies' patients.

's, commercial insurers and, even, national home-care companies.

Federal Inquiry Under Way Most of the investments by doctors in home-care companies are legal.

The home-care companies say doctor-owners of a company can better control the quality of a patient's care at home.

The bonds are meant to improve Medicare's ability to recover overpayments to home-care companies.

These rules guarantee that an outside insurer will repay any overcharges if the home-care company cannot.

If there is one issue the union, workers and home-care companies agree on, it is that wages should be higher.

When he started a home-care company about 19 years ago, he was determined to give one-on-one attention to his clients.

The hope is that its stock will have price-earnings ratios comparable to those of other rapidly growing home-care companies.