Home caregivers offer seniors safe and comfortable environments in which to live at home, reducing care costs while offering family members some respite from caregiving duties.
Home health agencies typically maintain a registry of prescreened attendants. You can also hire one directly through public directories or your Area Agency on Aging in your community.
Qualifications
Home caregivers may be family members or professionals employed by reputable home care agencies. Caregivers must be compassionate, clear communicators and physically capable of lifting and transporting clients while being trained according to state standards. Training topics will differ between caregivers in different states.
Some states mandate basic training for caregivers who assist patients in daily tasks like toileting and grooming, while other require home health aides (HHAs) to have formal nursing education and complete specific medical training on an array of topics.
Based on your family’s needs, hiring professional caregivers through an agency may be more advantageous. Agencies typically provide prescreened workers, back up care services and quick upgrades if your loved one’s condition changes quickly. They will also handle payroll taxes and insurance for you.
Experience
Based on your level of care needs, there are various sources that offer caregivers for hire: home health agencies, direct hire companies or word of mouth referrals from friends or relatives. You could also take advantage of community programs which offer sliding scale or low cost attendant care through funding mechanisms.
Caregiving often entails much more than simply dispensing medication or cleaning the house; it necessitates continuous problem solving, decision making and communication with family members as well as health and social service professionals.
Caregivers may also be responsible for overseeing technical procedures and equipment, including catheters, feeding tubes and tracheostomies. Furthermore, long-distance caregivers face unique communication and coordination challenges; their demands often interfere with personal and professional lives as a result of caregiving responsibilities. Accordingly, three themes have emerged through analysis: self-care trajectory/burden of responsibility/learning and behavior change as well as preemptively feeling connected through therapeutic relationships.
References
If you’re searching for a caregiver for someone close, it is essential that you check references. Furthermore, certification and credentials may need to be verified as they provide medical care services.
Selecting a caregiver with a solid reputation can put your mind at ease about the quality of care provided, but beware: criminals target seniors as prey, stealing money or physically abusing them.
Background checks are an invaluable way to prevent issues in home health care agencies or when hiring independent caregivers, though any agency should perform them for its employees as a matter of standard practice. When hiring independent caregivers yourself, be sure to conduct your own background check using references from former clients that include specific examples of their work as reliable sources.
Insurance
Be it private caregiver or agency caregiver, always select one with worker’s compensation insurance for its workers. In many states this requirement exists for home health agencies as well.
Before hiring any agency, it is wise to verify their liability and workers compensation policies, and also inquire as to whether or not they conduct background checks on their employees.
Some states provide assistance for in home care through HCBS Medicaid waivers or Section 1115 demonstration waivers, which cover costs such as hiring personal attendants for several hours each day or week or respite care several times monthly. Income limits usually range between 300% of SSI and 400% of SSI; state Medicaid agencies can provide more details.
Payment
Some states offer paid caregiver programs for people needing assistance at home. Check with your Area Agency on Aging to see which options may be available in your community; faith communities and senior service agencies might also have referrals for low-cost home care attendants.
Multiple Medicaid waiver programs enable their participants to select their own personal assistance providers; this service is known as consumer directed home services. Under some programs, family members including spouses may even be hired as paid caregivers under this initiative.
Home care rates in New York State depend on both location and the level of services required, with Buffalo and Utica having lower home care rates than Albany or the Finger Lakes region. People requiring specialization, such as catheter care or tending feeding tubes/tracheostomies/colonostomies etc may pay more.