Where do I start?

When you are considering whether it is time to bring in outside care to assist in the health and wellbeing of your loved one, the first step of determining what kind of care you need is often the most difficult.

There are so many new terms, care options, costs, types of service and more that it will make your head spin. Even as providers, we find the task of listing all the things we can provide overwhelming! Instead of offering a veritable buffet of options and solutions that you then have to assess, understand and weigh as appropriate for your loved one, we’d rather take all that stress off you. As your Care Concierge, we provide our expertise and years of experience to give a thorough assessment of your individual needs, and provide you with carefully crafted options that pertain specifically to your situation. We want to make sure you get the care that’s the right fit for your family member, not too much, and not too little either.

More importantly, what really matters is how this new process is going to fit into the life of your loved one, your life, and the lives of your family. Because at the end of the day, hiring care for your loved one should make everyone’s life easier, not harder and more complicated.

To find out how we can help you to the best of our ability, we need to know as much as we can about you, your loved one, and the current situation.

What area of town are they in? Does their house have stairs, or other obstacles to be aware of? How has your loved one’s health been up to this point? What do you see as future concerns or wishes for their care? What are the family dynamics involved?

In some cases, home health care isn’t the best option, and we’d prefer to let you know if that’s the case before you spend lots of time and resources seeking a solution that’s maybe not the best fit. We’ll give you honest feedback on what your next steps should be, and if we are a good match for your needs.

After talking with you and determining our services are a great fit for your family member,

next we need to meet your loved one and evaluate their home, lifestyle, and personality so we can provide the best matches from our team!

This is a low stress, meet and greet visit where we’ll just chat with you and your family and take some notes. It usually takes about 60-90 minutes of time, and we schedule around your needs, so we visit at the least intrusive time for your loved one.

We’ll then take our notes back to HQ and meet with Ally, our Chief Scheduler, to craft a Compassion Plan that’s tailored perfectly to your needs of time, cost, and best options for the vitality of your family member.

Once we have your Compassion Plan crafted, we’ll send it over to you for review, with a quick overview to make sure you understand all the aspects of the plan.

We encourage you to take some time to talk with your involved family members and your loved one receiving the care, in case there are any questions we can further clarify. If you’d prefer, we can review the Compassion Plan in person at the home of your loved one with them…it’s all up to you! We want you to be completely comfortable with the care goals set, and to provide as much transparency as possible so we set realistic expectations for all involved.

Because communication is the backbone of Home Care, we take special care to build the communication channels, frequency, and expectations you will have with us at this step. There can be a fine line between too much unnecessary communication and something falling through the cracks that should have been passed along, so we want to do all we can to ensure smooth communications throughout the span of care. This is also the best time to discuss if some family members need to have limited access to communication channels, due to Power of Attorney needs or other difficult family dynamics. It is our goal to blend seamlessly into your lives, so the more information you can provide us, the better we can adapt and do our best to avoid stressful situations.

After approving your Compassion Plan, we’ll set the schedule for your loved one’s care in motion, and introduce you to the different caretakers who will be your dedicated team.

We strive to keep staff changes to a minimum, as we know how disruptive it can me for your family member and their lifestyle. Occasionally unexpected events happen, a caretaker may be ill or unavailable, and in those instances we will be in contact as soon as we are aware to alert you to any changes. We’ll get the team up to speed and make sure all lines of communication are outlined, and provide reports regularly about how things are going.

Our team of caretakers are truly angels on earth, and they take special interest in each and every one of their special people. Our caring providers are always looking for that bond to share, from reading stories to talking about sports teams, because it’s the humanity of our work that really matters beyond the work itself. Everyone enjoys the visit that much more when there’s fun and sharing involved!

What does it cost? When can we start? Who will be in my loved one’s home?

These are a just few of the questions we hear everyday, and while some answers are complicated and depend on the situation, others are a bit more straight forward. Here are a few things we can address globally about our care, for your specific needs and situation we are ALWAYS just a phone call, text, or email away with all the details you need. We welcome any and all inquiries, because we want you to be informed as possible about your options and choices in the care of your loved one.

When can we start?

Though each situation is different, we have started care in as little as 3-4 days from the initial call with the family when immediate care was necessary. Most families need some time to process the information and make infirmed choices, so on average from the time you approve your care to us having staff in place and ready to start your schedule is approximately one week.

What does it cost/how am I billed?

Again, it depends on so many factors of care: does your insurance cover partial payment, or full assistance? What kinds of care is the best fit for your loved one? Will you need just our minimum 20 hr a week of basic care, 24/7 in home assistance with a medical aspect, or some blend of both?

We know navigating the world of insurance with Home Health Care is extremely confusing and difficult, so if you’d like us to talk directly with your insurance and report back on what we can bill directly to them and what your costs would be, we are more than happy to do so.

Is there a contract with a time span aspect?

In an ever changing situation of caring for someone as they age and have varying health related needs, we believe having a rigid contact is limiting, superficial, and just not in the best interest for our clients. When you hire us, if your loved one needs something different regarding their care or no longer requires our services, all you need to do is provide us 24 hours of notice so we can alert our staff and rearrange our placement of providers. Need to add on a shift or medical aspect? Simply give us a call, and we’ll get it added into your Compassion Plan ASAP.

How many caregivers will be in the home?

We hear this question often after COVID, and while the answer depends on the care needed for your loved one, we do our best to keep consistent and minimal changes to the caregiver schedule to provide as much consistency as possible for you and your loved one. We know how disruptive it can be, especially if there are added complications with Alzheimer’s/Dementia cases, so we assign your team specifically to your care to keep things familiar as possible. This also assists with synchronizing needs regarding medications, physical therapy and more, so it’s a win-win for all!