4 Tips For Finding The Best Home Health Care Provider

Home health care is a delicate matter and must be handled with tact and commitment. There may come a time when a parent or other elderly loved one is no longer able to safely support themselves on their own. Home health care is a viable alternative to sending someone to a nursing home and is a convenient option that enables your loved one to get the care they need without having to be uprooted from their home. With an enormous amount of options, it can be tricky to find the best service but continue reading and you will discover several easy tips for finding a high quality home health care provider.

Get References/Recommendations

Any successful home health care provider should have references or recommendations readily available. Talk to your loved one's doctors, attorney, financial advisor and other members of the community that may know of companies that offer a premium quality service. Your local Area Agency on Aging will have a list of providers you can look at. If this agency or a hospital social work department can give a recommendation that would be great because they rarely do so and tend to save such references for the very best services.

Find Out Your Liability

Whenever you hire a private home health care provider, please understand that there will be certain liabilities involved. Be sure to learn more about insurance, taxes, worker's compensation, training and background checks before making any decisions. If you use an employment agency to make a hire for example, you could become the official employer of the caregiver which means responsibility for payment, taxes and numerous other obligations.

Analyze Their Equipment

Only consider home health care providers that use cutting edge communications and monitoring technology. Don't be afraid to ask questions. For example: How long does it take the service provider to find out if their employee has not turned up? How do they communicate with you? Do they provide online monitoring? Be specific with your questions and don't be fobbed off by vague answers.

Know Your Provider

As this company will be responsible for taking care of your loved one, you need to learn more about them and how they operate. Find out if they allow you and your loved one to interview candidates for the job and get information on how they train and support their team. Additionally, you need to find out how many different caregivers will be responsible for providing care. It is best if only 1-2 staff members are involved to maintain continuity. Your loved one should not be subjected to the confusion of having several different strange people in his/her home.

Home Health Care History

The early nineteenth century witnessed the initial stages of the home health care industry that offered qualified nurses to take care of the poor and sick in their homes. In 1909 when Metropolitan Life Insurance Company started to write policies that comprised of home health care, this industry became very popular. This company is credited for paying the first compensation for home health care industry. This gave rise to the birth of organized home health care.

The Great Depression in 1929 caused several businesses along with home care industry a lot of hindrances and struggle. This went on till the follow-up visits made by nurses after hospital discharge became reimbursable by the Medicare Act of 1966. The home care industry became most feasible and practical when Medicare in an attempt to reduce hospitalization costs set up DRG's program (Diagnostic Related Group). This laid down that some disease or hospital practice needed a certain stay period. So the discharged patients were more sick compared to their DRG counterparts.

The story does not finish with DRGs. This in fact was the commencement of patient care vs. medical ethics debate. This subject shall be soon addressed in the present health care reform segment. The price of health care is the issue. Questions like how much does a human life cost and how long one should pay for keeping alive a person after he ceases to be a contributor to the society need to be addressed.

Home health care industry needs to answer these questions. The main intention of the DRG programs was to cut down the hospital stay in order to lower hospitalization costs. Thus this becomes a challenge to the agencies. But gradually home care started becoming expensive. The Balanced Budge Act of 1997 hand one major side effect. It limited the benefit days to the patients under home health care thereby lowering the compensations to the various home health care agencies. This resulted in many of these agencies going out of business.

The price to take care of a patient will always stay an issue. There was a growth of nosocomial diseases in hospitals that lead to heavy health care costs. Patients started getting discharged in a much sicker condition than before. This put additional burden on the family of the patient to make available good care once the family member is home. Also majority of the people were working. Home health care agencies that provide services were unable to discharge patients when they exceed their Medicare days if they are in a bad condition or its not safe to depart from them without any nursing services.

In case the home care agency declines admission of a patient who seems sicker than the number of reimbursement days allowed by the government, the patients' family does not have too many choices. In case of the patient being discharged without any adequate follow-up care, the patients' family can seek services of a qualified agency that could strain on emergency room visits and re-hospitalization leading to more compensation issues. Such questions are difficult to answer more so in cases where cost is to be taken care of. But, as time passes, such questions will continue to haunt till there are satisfactory answers to them.

Home Health Care Certification

What exactly is home health care and how do you enter this booming market? As indicated by its name, home health care is simply health care provided for those that require assistance in their home. It shouldn't be confuse from basic home care, which does not account for the trained medical care that is provided.

In most cases, simple home care involves meeting the day to day needs of your loved one, like shopping, cleaning and errand running, and is mostly provided by friends or family. On occasion a companion is hired to perform these tasks. In contrast, home health care is usually provided by a trained professional. This may be a nurse, a therapist, or a home health aide.

To become a home health care professional, you will be required to receive some type of training. The training focus will usually center on home safety in regards to the patient. You will also receive training on how to deliver professional personal care, and how to properly use the equipment needed to assist those requiring home health care services.

The training required for the various positions can vary from on the job training to more advanced training that requires certification or a degree. The largest organization that offers training for home health care certification is the National Association for Home Care and Hospice. They offer various certification programs.

If you are in a current management position, you may want to become certified as a Home Care and Hospice Executive. If you want to receive a certification in the hands on training area, you can apply for the Home Care Aide National Certification program. No matter which certification you seek, you will need to re-certify every four years.

For the home care aides, the certification process will involve three elements that you must pass. You must pass the Training portion, the Skills Demonstration, and the Written Examination. The training portion requires a curriculum of 75 hours. This training will give you the medical skills to become fully certified.

The Skills Demonstration portion involves demonstrating competency in seventeen various skills. Demonstration of this competency comes from observation and documentation. The Written Examination is administered by the Home Care University. Obtaining your certification will ensure patients and clients that you are providing them with a higher standard of home care aide.

Whether you desire to enter this field in a management position, or as a hands-on care provider, the home health care industry has an increased need for professionals in this field. Because of our aging population, the need is expected to continue to rise through the next ten years or so. Obtaining your certification in this area will give you a leg up on your competition.