How to Find a Home Health Care Agency

Locating a home health care company is not always an easy task.  The decision to go this route for a loved one is loaded with meaning, emotional difficulty, and then lots of practical issues that make it all the more challenging.  If you’re looking for some tips to help you search for a company that can meet your needs, here are some suggestions to give you guidance.

 Home health care services can be intermittent, full-time during the day and/or night, or live-in. It can involve practical tasks or assistance with physical care.  And depending on the type of care you need, it can involve different professionals with different skills. It simply depends on what the senior needs and, how much and what, assistance the family can provide.  Let’s take a look.
 
  • Consider what kind of support you need: What do you need in someone who is going to take care of your loved one.  Are you looking for personal care assistance or home health care assistance?  Personal care assistance may focus on everything from meal preparation to light cleaning and some assisted living services like grooming and dressing.  Home health care assistance may focus on the more medical side of things such as assisted movement, help in the bathroom, checking vitals, and ensuring medication is taken when needed.
 
  • Agency vs registry workers: When you’ve decided what kind of support is most needed, the next job becomes figuring out whether you want to look for someone through an agency, or look for a private individual who works for themselves.  An agency means that everyone is pre-screened and that the agency is going to provide backup support when your hired aide isn’t available.  You would pay the agency and they then pay the worker. They tend to be more expensive than a private individual but for that extra expense, there is backup and some security. It simply depends on what you are most looking for and what you can afford.
 
  • Involve the senior in the decision: Regardless of what kind of aide, or how you access the services that you are looking for, it’s important to always involve the senior in the decision.  Since it’s their health and life, they need to make sure that they are always involved and integrated into the process. As long as they are competent you will need their permission to proceed and ultimately, who you select will be their decision.

At the end of the day, it’s all about what makes the difference
            From making the decision about getting home health care, to actually putting it into action, this process can be really challenging and may cause a lot of disruption emotionally for you and the senior.  It’s best to remember that, at the end of the day, this is all about the care and safety of the senior in your life.  
            These tips will help make the search easier, faster, and less stressful so that you can simply focus on what you need to do to keep the senior safe and happy.

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If you are looking for assistance locating a home or resources for your loved one, you can reach out to our consulting team at consulting@seniorcareaccess.com or visit our consulting page for more information. Our Discover 3 program offers decision-makers and seniors, an opportunity to have a professional consultant identify 3 housing solutions based on their needs. If you need more information on care options for seniors, retirement community, or long-term care visiting tips and/or if you are interested in organizing your loved one’s information using our Care Planning Workbook, visit our publications page for a list of options and downloads.
For additional questions, feel free to contact us at connect@seniorcareaccess.com.
SeniorCareAccess.com is Canada’s largest unbiased seniors’ housing database, offering consulting services, and both seniors’ service and housing directories for professionals, seniors, and their families.
 
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