Pediatric private duty nursing in DeKalb County

Who we serve in DeKalb County

Children under 21 whose day-to-day care needs a nurse or a trained caregiver: a tracheostomy or ventilator, a feeding tube, oxygen, seizure care, or significant help with lifting, positioning and daily activities. There is no fixed list of qualifying diagnoses. Approval turns on how much hands-on care your child needs each day, and Georgia Medicaid decides who is approved, not HeartPath.

Clarkston sits in DeKalb and is one of the most linguistically diverse places in the United States. Interpreter services are free on every one of our calls, and our whole site is available in Spanish. If your family speaks another language, say so on the first call and we will arrange it before anyone comes to the house.

Where children come home from in DeKalb County

DeKalb is where the metro’s main pediatric hospital now sits, so a large share of medically complex children in Georgia are discharged from inside this county. If your child is still admitted, call before discharge.

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Arthur M. Blank Hospital is at 2220 North Druid Hills Road in DeKalb. It opened in September 2024 with 446 beds and absorbed the inpatient services that used to run at Egleston, so families who were told for years to go to Egleston are now discharged from here.

Emory Decatur and Emory Hillandale handle deliveries closer to home for much of the county. Babies who need sustained intensive care generally end up at Blank, which is the campus most DeKalb discharge planners are coordinating with.

Babies Can’t Wait in DeKalb County

DeKalb County is served by District 3-5, the DeKalb health district. DeKalb is its own health district and its Babies Can’t Wait office is in Decatur.

Babies Can’t Wait is Georgia’s early intervention program for children under three. It runs alongside GAPP rather than instead of it, and a child can be in both. If you are still working out which programs apply, our guide to coming home from the hospital walks through the order they happen in, and Babies Can’t Wait and GAPP explains how the two fit together.

Getting there from DeKalb County

Our office is just over the line in Sandy Springs, minutes from DeKalb’s northern edge, so this is one of the shortest drives we have.

Care is scheduled around your family, including nights, weekends and overnights. We match nurses to a child and work to keep the same nurse with the same family, because the nurse who knows your child’s baseline is the one who notices the day it changes.

What it costs a family here

Nothing. For children approved through Georgia Medicaid there is no out-of-pocket cost, no copay and no deductible. If you have been told your income is too high for Medicaid, read how Katie Beckett works before you give up on it. That pathway ignores parents’ income entirely and looks only at the child’s medical needs.

Starting from Decatur

Call 678-459-2590 or check eligibility online. We talk with you, help get the physician documentation moving, and submit the authorization request to Georgia Medicaid. About 30 days from first call to care starting is typical, though Medicaid sets the pace of its own review. Here is the full timeline.