Comprehensive Plan of Care

We were talking with some folks on Saturday, about all of the questions involved in hiring an in-home care provider. We'll talk about this list soon, although you can look at our recommendations on what questions to ask on our Web site. However, one of the most over-looked issue is making sure that whomever you are talking to can help the family build a comprehensive plan of care. As we tell families, unless all of the needs of someone requiring home care are addressed, the in-home care "slice" of the plan of care "pie" is likely to be less than adequate.

When we talk about a comprehensive plan of care, we mean a wide variety of potential needs, inclusing things like home safety (grab bars, ramps, transfer poles, ...), medical emergency alerts (a necklace or bracelet), a private fiduciary or conservator, home health (for skilled nursing), and there are many more possible needs that should be discussed with the family and client.
For each of these needs, we make sure we have a great resource who can help the family, if they do have those requirements. Obviously (well, with some agencies, not so obviously), we do NOT have any financial ties to those resources. Either they are the best, most ethical resouce or we do not work with them. Agencies providing in-home care that take commissions, are completely out of line, as far as we are concerned.

Bottom line, make sure that the agency you select can help you identify all needs and can help satisfy them with top-notch resources.