How Do I Select the Right Home Care Provider?

How Do I Select the Right Home Care Provider?

Once you acquire the names of several providers, you will want to learn more about their services and reputations. Following is a checklist of questions to ask providers and other individuals who may know about the provider's track record. Their insight will help you determine which provider is best for you or your loved one.

• How long has this provider been serving the community?
• Does this provider supply literature explaining its services, eligibility requirements, fees, and funding sources? Many providers furnish patients with a detailed "Patient Bill of Rights" that outlines the rights and responsibilities of the providers, patients, and caregivers alike. An annual report and other educational materials also can provide helpful information about the provider.
• How does this provider select and train its employees? Does it protect its workers with written personnel policies, benefits packages, and malpractice insurance?
• Are nurses or therapists required to evaluate the patient's home care needs? If so, what does this entail? Do they consult the patient's physicians and family members?
• Does this provider include the patient and his or her family members in developing the plan of care? Are they involved in making care plan changes?
• Is the patient's course of treatment documented, detailing the specific tasks to be carried out by each professional caregiver? Does the patient and his or her family receive a copy of this plan, and do the caregivers update it as changes occur? Does this provider take time to educate family members on the care being administered to the patient?
• Does this provider assign supervisors to oversee the quality of care patients are receiving in their homes? If so, how often do these individuals make visits? Who can the patient and his or her family members call with questions or complaints? How does the agency follow up on and resolve problems?
• What are the financial procedures of this provider? Does the provider furnish written statements explaining all of the costs and payment plan options associated with home care?
• What procedures does this provider have in place to handle emergencies? Are its caregivers available 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
• How does this provider ensure patient confidentiality?

In addition, ask the home care provider to supply you with a list of references, such as doctors, discharge planners, patients or their family members, and community leaders who are familiar with the provider's quality of service.
Contact each reference and ask:

• Do you frequently refer clients to this provider?
• Do you have a contractual relationship with this provider? If so, do you require the provider to meet special standards for quality care?
• What sort of feedback have you gotten from patients receiving care from this provider, either on an informal basis or through a formal satisfaction survey?
• Do you know of any clients this provider has treated whose cases are similar to mine or my loved one's? If so, can you put me in touch with these individuals?

"Learn About Senior In Home Health Care in Ann Arbor Michigan

Senior Helpers Provides Many services in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. We provide a full array of Home Care services for seniors and the elderly living in the area. Our Home Care Services are provided by bonded and insured employees and all employees pass a National Background check.

If you need Home Care services in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Saline, Brighton, Howell, Jackson and the surrounding areas we are an excellent choice with impeccable references. Home Health Care for your elderly loved ones is never an easy choice but we can promise we will do our best to make it as painless as possible. From our family to yours we sincerely thank you for considering Senior Helpers of Ann Arbor Home Health Care Company.  "

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Long-Term Care - The Tool Kit

Long-Term Care -  The Tool Kit
By Gary Barg
Gramp was an extraordinarily brave and hard-working man.  In 1925, he jumped ship in  Baltimore Harbor off a Russian freighter to which he was consigned at the age of 17.  Later, he made his way to New Jersey where he started a contracting company and raised a family.  At the age of 35, when World War II broke out, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy.
By the early 1950's, he and his brothers owned four hotels on Miami Beach, but in the summer of 2000, he died penniless in a South Florida nursing home.  In only a few short years, our family had spent all of his significant savings, taking care of him and maintaining his long-term care needs.
Gramp was a craftsman and he firmly believed in using the right tool for the right job.  His old wooden tool kit was a world of wonder for his grandchildren. He never tired of explaining to us how each of the various tools worked and how each was best utilized.
If only Gramp had known before his illness that there was another kind of tool kit which needed to be assembled, a tool kit as important to his success as the old wooden one—a financial tool kit.
Gramp was like most of us.  He knew he needed to prepare for future needs and plan for adversity.  He had much of his financial tool kit filled with stocks and bonds, investment properties and an up-to-date will.  However, he realized too late that there was a staggering price to himself and his family for neglecting to prepare an appropriate long-term care program.
I have spent much of the last nine years, since founding Today's Caregiver magazine and caregiver.com, working to ensure that other caregiving families are not faced with financial ruin due to the increasing cost of caring for their loved ones, and that each caregiver's financial tool kit includes considering the option of long-term care coverage.
Caregivers understand what steps are needed to safeguard their loved one's physical and emotional health.  We must now become adept at learning the steps needed to ensure our family's fiscal health.  The lesson taught by the preceding generation and the one we must pass on to generations to come is that the tool kits you carefully assemble during your lifetime must include all instruments of preparedness to meet any situation.
Proper long-term care planning allows your loved ones financial flexibility and emotional security.
It truly is the gift of a lifetime.

http://www.caregiver.com/channels/ltc/articles/LTC_toolkit.htm

"Learn About Senior In Home Health Care in Ann Arbor Michigan Senior Helpers Provides Many services in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. We provide a full array of Home Care services for seniors and the elderly living in the area. Our Home Care Services are provided by bonded and insured employees and all employees pass a National Background check. If you need Home Care services in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Saline, Brighton, Howell, Jackson and the surrounding areas we are an excellent choice with impeccable references. Home Health Care for your elderly loved ones is never an easy choice but we can promise we will do our best to make it as painless as possible. From our family to yours we sincerely thank you for considering Senior Helpers of Ann Arbor Home Health Care Company. "