It’s never too soon to start planning for long-term care, and waiting until the last minute can result in undue stress and the need to make snap decisions that may not be the best for your situation.
Because many Americans wish to age in place, a good place to start your long-term care plan is with a greater understanding of your in-home care options. The following are the five types of home care that everyone should know about before creating their long-term care plan:
- Full Service Private Duty/Private Pay Agencies are usually “non-medical” services and can range from companionship, housekeeping, transportation, personal care, and dementia care to 24-hour or respite care. A private duty home care agency, like A-Abiding Care, provides non-medical care by employees of the agency who are screened, trained, monitored and typically bonded and insured. There is far more safety in this model, and far less potential liability for the care recipient than with a nursing registry.
- Nursing Registries/Healthcare Registries act as “matchmaker” services, assigning workers to clients and patients who need home care. However, registries place the responsibilities of managing and supervising the worker on the patient, a family member, or a family advisor. Supervision, monitoring, government-mandated taxes, and workers’ compensation coverage usually fall on the consumer and oftentimes the workers are not trained.
- Home Health Care is skilled nursing care that one receives at home for the treatment of an illness or injury. Examples are care for a wound (dressing changes); injections; monitoring of health conditions like diabetes, blood pressure or heart disease; assistance with medical equipment like dialysis; assistance with an indwelling catheter; assistance with a naso-gastric (NG) tube feeding or a ventilator. Services are often provided by Medicare-certified Home Health Agencies (HHA’s). Home Health Care can also provide rehabilitation services including speech, physical and respiratory therapies.
- Hospice Care is a special concept of care designed to provide comfort and support to patients and their families when a life-limiting illness no longer responds to cure-oriented treatments. Hospice is generally depicted as end-of-life care and can be in a home or a hospital setting, but it is usually required that someone be with the dying patient at all times. How a family accomplishes this is up to the individual and the family. Hospice entails a range of services from nurses and mental health professionals to spiritual advisors.
- Medicaid Home and Community Based Care is intended to provide services for those who cannot afford to pay for care—and is designed with the goal of keeping the person out of a nursing home. Recipients do not need to be homebound or ill to receive the services. To access Medicaid services, the client must first be assessed by a state agency that gate-keeps the program and be approved for a specific number of home care hours or given a voucher for a certain amount of care.
With a long-term care plan in place, you can rest assured that the aging experience for yourself or your loved ones will be according to your wishes, enhancing quality of life and wellbeing. A-Abiding Care provides compassionate, highly skilled care for seniors at home throughout the greater Chicago area, with services including meal planning and preparation, light housekeeping, shopping and running errands, personal care such as bathing and shower assistance, grooming, hair and skin care, help with eating, and so much more. Contact us when you’re ready to take the next step in fulfilling your long-term care plan.
Our professional caregivers offer a wide variety of home care services to meet your loved one’s unique and individual needs, including:
In-Home Care
Hospital-to-Home Transitional Care
Specialized Senior Home Care
Assistance Services
A-Abiding Care, Inc. was founded in 1983 by Joyce Kernan – a registered nurse and pioneer in the field of home care – on the principles of showing clients kindness and respect while providing loving, compassionate care for seniors at home. Today, Joyce’s family, along with our loyal staff, continue her legacy and mission; to provide quality home care for seniors in the Chicago area and provide meaningful employment for many caregivers, nurses and administrative staff.
I feel honored to care for our community members and to be a part of their lives in a meaningful, lasting way.
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