Those who are seriously ill and need long term care or, those who are recovering from a surgery might just not be able to do their work themselves. Then there are older folks who would naturally fall ill due to their age and mat require long term care. Home care is not always readily available as people in the family may be engaged in their jobs and cannot pay total attention. Those who can manage to take care of the seniors might also feel, they are not trained enough to tackle certain serious requirements of certain illnesses.
Whether you are thinking about taking the help from senior home health agencies or hire a personal care at home, you would need to find out a few details of the service you take. To receive assistance that is of quality and, you would need to know if the agency is-
Having state license- Most of the states require the senior home health agencies to have a license that is reviewed regularly. The health department of the state is entitled to provide reviews to these agencies and you may ask them to show you one.
Medicare certified- The senior home health agencies should be certified under the federal law and meet the requirements put down by Medicare. You have every right to question why they are not Medicare certified and refuse to take assistance if they don’t produce valid documents.
Perform Employee screenings- Find out what kind of employee screenings are done by these agencies. Ask for references of doctors, nurses, planners of hospital discharge, and professionals who have been associated with these senior home health agencies. The best thing would be to ask your doctors, friends and family to recommend these services if they have knowledge of such.
Government accreditation- You can find out if these agencies have been accredited by the likes of Joint Commission. The Joint Commission happens to be one independent group, which can evaluate health programs on voluntary request of reviews.
Credentials of the aide- Find out how much experience and in which area the health aide has before you appoint a particular one. Try and get an aide which has relevant experience and for maximum years.
Apart from these factors, the general aspects that need to be taken care of while appointing senior home health care is if the person has a good record of service, has a good record. You may try and communicate with the families that had taken the assistance from the aide and the agency. Though it needs no mention, check their criminal records in the files and see if they are clean.
After all it is your seniors who are in question and you do not want things to go further wrong. Most of the seniors get irritable due to their age and persisting illness. They might need help for longer period of time and most of the time, serious help. It’s very important that the agencies can cater to all the nursing and other requirements that are needed when one is ill.