Choosing A Home Health Care Agency

More and more seniors are choosing to “age in place” – staying comfortably in their own homes.

It is true that there is no place like home, and choosing the right Home Health Care Agency will help ensure that your house or apartment will be a place of safety and comfort for many years to come.

An interesting fact is that Ohio doesn’t require state licensure or state registration requirements for the hundreds of home health care agencies operating today. So, choosing a qualified company is solely the consumer’s responsibility.

There are four basic services that home health care agencies provide:

· Home Health Care – These services include services performed by professional medical staff. They include: skilled nursing care, therapeutic services, wound care, assistance with daily medicine, intravenous antibiotics, other intravenous medications, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. Home health care agencies certified in the Medicare program must provide skilled nursing services, but they can also provide non-medical services in addition.

· Personal Care Services – These services are non-medical helping services, such as help with eating, dressing, bathing, toileting, transferring from bed to chair and back again, walking and managing personal business affairs. Personal care workers can help oversee self-administered medications and offer respite care for full time care givers.

· Home Care Attendant Services – Home Care Attendants provide care for those with physical or mental impairments. They can provide personal care, household cleaning, dish washing, meal preparation, grooming, transportation, and money management assistance.

· Home Delivered Nutrition Program – The best known in Greater Cincinnati is “Meals On Wheels,” but there are others available. They provide hot meals daily and/or frozen meals that can be prepared in a microwave.

One of the most important ways to ensure you choose the right company is to take time to adequately assess the daily needs of the elderly person who will receive the help.

For instance, if preparing dinner is problematic, home care hours should be scheduled in the afternoon, so a hot evening meal can be prepared. Or, if getting out of bed and in and out of the shower is the most difficult chore, early hours should be scheduled. However, make sure you don’t schedule a home care worker at 8 a.m., when the person to be helped doesn’t rise in the morning until 10 or 11.

“Make sure the home care service is able to adequately meet the needs of the person who will be cared for – during the hours and performing the duties they truly need,“ said Sandra M. Jones, a local social worker and gerontology specialist, who works with seniors and adults with developmental disabilities.

Also, when a representative from a home health care agency is scheduled to be interviewed, make sure a family member or friend is there to help with the interview process – not just the senior who will be cared for.

“Make sure it’s not just the marketing person who comes out,” Ms. Jones said. “Ask them to bring a member of their direct care staff. That way you will get an idea of the kind of people they have on staff and a better idea of the care that will provide.”

So, where do you find qualified home care agency candidates to choose from? Ms. Jones said the very best way is "word of mouth."

Ask your doctor and your doctor's office staff, your pharmacist, your pastor, church secretary, family and friends. Also, once you have found a couple you like, Google them and see what complaints, if any, are online about these agencies.

For more information, visit www.HomeCareChoice.com, or contact Ms. Jones, who is also founder and president of SOACT, Supporting Older Adults in Challenging Times, an advocacy organization for seniors at www.blackage.org , email her at sandrajones@fuse.net or call her at 513-237-7454.