A good place to begin a search for home care is the local Area Agency on Aging. We found these agencies helpful in directing us to resources. The agencies will either do free assessments to determine which services your relative needs or refer you to others that will. Beware of organizations that offer toll-free telephone numbers and purport to give advice about long-term-care services. Such groups may charge high prices for their services, which often duplicate those available free from the Area Agency on Aging.
Make sure that the aide is bonded and the agency has workers' compensation coverage. A bond protects you in case of theft; and workers' compensation covers any injury to an aide that occurs on your property. If an agency does not have workers' compensation coverage, check to be sure your homemaker's insurance is adequate.
Make a list of the services you want an aide to perform and give it to the agency. If you need an aide to move your father in and out of bed every day, you wouldn't want the agency to send a worker who has a bad back.
Find out if the agency has a system in place for sending out a substitute aide if yours doesn't show up for work, and if it will replace an aide your parent finds incompatible.
Monitor the care being delivered. Make sure the goals of the care plan are being met. Home-care advocates in Philadelphia have begun to investigate complaints that skilled therapists who come into the home are not providing the hours of therapy ordered by physicians. Data from the Health Care Financing Administration also indicate that proper care is not always given.
[Consumer Reports, October 1995]