Hospice Home Care Services: Questions to Consider When Choosing In-Home Care
Hospice Home Care Services: Questions to Consider When Choosing In-Home Care
Do you know when it’s time to start thinking about planned care for an elderly loved one? Does the thought of visiting a parent or relative in a rather cold, sterile environment of a facility fill you with apprehension and emotion-driven doubt? You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t.
A viable option to consider is in-home care, such as through the kinds of services Royal Home Companion offers. There are a myriad of reasons you should leave the in-home care of your loved one to professional hospice home care services providers as opposed to taking the task on yourself; while there are some of us out there who consider caring for an aging or ill family member an ethically rewarding experience, it can become an overwhelming responsibility depending on the level of care required and other demands on the caregiver’s time and energy.
When taking these factors into consideration, it may be time to explore other home care options – such as choosing professional senior hospice home care services.
Before Your Decision
Before choosing a hospice home care services provider, ask yourself these questions:
- How much time is typically invested in caring for the patient at home…and is this likely to increase or decrease over time?
- What is the required skill level the caregiver should possess in order to provide the optimum care for the patient?
- If family members and friends are capable of providing the necessary care – can any one of them do so without becoming overburdened?
- What about the feelings and wishes of the patient? Does the individual being cared for have any thoughts about a private caregiver assisting with his or her well-being? Is he or she comfortable with the concept of a relative stranger handling their care?
After Your Decision
Once the decision has been made to go forward with hiring a hospice home care services provider, there are still quite a few avenues to explore…further, it is important, as hinted at above, to include and acknowledge the patient’s preferences. Consider the following as you look for the ideal private home care company:
- Make a list of exactly what would be expected of a caregiver including the services required.
- If it’s a singular individual being considered for the job, find out if he or she is employed by a hospice home care agency or a hospice care organization licensed by the state.
- Establish what specific services will be provided and if these are what you’re looking for, again taking the patient’s needs into prime consideration.
- Find out if Medicare will pay for the service, and if not determine exactly how the services will be paid for.
- As aforementioned, determine the qualifications of the individual or individuals rendering the care – your loved one’s life, after all, is at the core of the analysis here.
- Inquire whether the same caregiver or caregivers will always be available, or if it will be necessary to get comfortable with the fact that there may be different ones.
Other Aspects to Consider
In addition to these points, it is also important to ask about the agency or organization’s flexibility in terms of weekends, nights and holidays. Further, and perhaps most important in certain aspects, determine how the hospice care organization or individual caregiver treat their patients and the patients’ families…is this done with some measure of respect?
The Royal Home Companion Way
That brings us to how we do business at Royal Home Companion. When it comes to the well-being and ultimate comfort of the patients we serve through our plethora of humane hospice care and respite care approaches, we treat the way we would want to be treated. At Royal Home Companion, all of our patients are family…and we never turn our back on family no matter how complex the situation. From private home care that encompasses intuitive, incredibly warm hospice home care services to a level of respite care that remains unmatched in the communities we serve, Royal Home Companion is redefining humanity in the area of senior care.