Once you realize that your elderly loved one needs home care, the next step is to find the perfect home care provider that will suit your needs and preferences.
Home care is broadly categorized under medical and non-medical home care, and it is important to understand which type of care you are looking for. While you may feel that finding the right home care provider can be a challenge, setting down a few important points and having an honest and clear discussion right at the start can help.
What To Ask A Home Care Provider Agency
In order to make sure that all your doubts are clear, and that the agency also clearly understands what you are looking for, here are a few things you need to discuss with the provider right at the start:
- Years Of Experience In Providing Home Care
Ask the providers how long they have been providing home care for. Also ask about the number of years they have helped provide home care for medical as well as non-medical cases. Find out their employee strength in terms of the care staff, as this will give you a good idea of their reach. - Years Of Experience In Health Care
You can ask them about their years of experience in the industry. Some health care providers may not have been providing home health care right from the start, but may have been associated with health care in some or the other form before they decided to also venture into home health care. If that is the case, you will know that this is a provider that you can trust. - Registration And Other Paperwork
Make sure you check with the provider about various certifications and paperwork, such as registration, licence and all. - Other References And Support Staff
While you are primarily getting in touch with the agency to hire home health care staff for your elderly family member, having a ready base of support staff can be an added help, especially in times of an emergency. For instance, even though you are looking for someone who can come home and assist the elderly person, it will be helpful if the carer can get in touch with a doctor or therapist who is already registered with the home health care provider. - Find Out About All Additional Services
At present you are looking for a home carer for your elderly family member, but it is always good to know what all additional services the home health care provider can offer you. This will help you to save time in future. Also, when you get most of your services taken care of by a single agency, you can be assured of more timely assistance and care, as well as have a ready comfort level.
Questions About Home Health Caregivers
As someone who is bringing in a stranger in your home to care for the elderly, we understand your concern and apprehensions. At Care24, we regularly ask our clients to ask as many questions as they would like to, so that no doubt or concern is left unanswered.
Here are a few things you can ask a home health care provider when you are looking for a home care giver for your elderly loved one:
- How do you select the various home care givers and what kind of background qualification do you ask for?
- Do you have an in-house training program for all your home care staff so that you can maintain uniformity? If yes, how do you do so and what kind of training do you provide?
- What kind of certification do you provide your home care givers with and where are they registered?
- Do you perform criminal background checks before hiring someone as your staff? What precautions do you take in terms of safety?
- In case a particular home care giver goes on sudden leave or is unavailable for any reason, how soon do you send across a replacement carer and what is the procedure? Do you already brief the person beforehand or does the family of the patient have to do the same?
- Do you keep a record of all the health details of the person that the carer is looking after and is there a record of daily progress? Where and with whom are these stored and how can the family get access to it?
- What happens in case of an emergency? How does the health care provider agency assist if the carer is already present in the house of the patient? How does the health care provider agency assist if the carer is not there at the time of the emergency?
Home care can be a very good option to make sure your elderly parents or relatives are cared for in an environment they are comfortable in and familiar with. You may bring in a professional caregiver or attendant to assist with some daily activities initially, and then switch to a full day or night care routine, or any other care program that works best.
You can get in touch with our team at Care24 to find out and customize the best home care plan for your elderly loved one.
