Right at Home News- February 27th

I was waylaid in Florida because of last Fridays snowstorm, with my little kids and had to spend 3 extra days in the sunshine.....too bad for me! The Right at Home management staff and care staff did an outstanding job of manning the ship while I was away.

I always think about our local elders in these snowstorms. Our clients have Right at Home caregivers to help them get around or to do errands for them. Other elders in our community just get stuck at home, or make unsafe attempts to shovel or walk our uneven sidewalks (Marblehead, where I live can be especially treacherous for winter walking). If you have an elderly neighbor, please stop over to see if there is anything that you can do for them. Even if it is picking up milk when you are out, it can mean the difference in that person's day.

Other news at Right at Home finds Lynne Nieman, our Community Relations Liaison, being brought down temporarily with a medical condition. We miss Lynne here at the office and we hope to see her back meeting our clients and their families very soon.

Does Managing Bills for Your Loved One Drive You Crazy?

Many of our adult caregivers are managing bills for their elder relatives with or without truly having a Power of Attorney. Sometimes, an elder client must give away managing their affairs, not because of dementia or confusion, but maybe eyesight is failing or there are organizational issues. We have been recommending a local company to help our clients in this area. The company is named Commonwealth Cash Management. They offer a professional daily money management service to get those bookkeeping tasks done. Their Personal Cash Management services encompass personal bookkeeping, recordkeeping, bill paying and investment data aggregation services. Each customer is assigned a dedicated CCM Client Assistant who works with the customer/caregiver, operating within a system of institution-quality checks and balances. The Client Assistant is available to make personal visits on a schedule of the person's choosing, and the frequency of your contact with CCM is always up to the client. This company is based right here in Salem, MA and the founders KC Kommoss and Jeff Plakans have extensive experience offering financial services right here on the North Shore. Our adult caregivers always have WAY too much on their plates. When they look for local cash managers, there is not much choice up in this area. Sometimes individuals will "bill pay" for elders, but they are not real companies and they open up the elder to fraud or as the victim of horrible mistakes. Using a professional company for Daily Money Manage, only makes sense. We here at Right at Home understand that if our clients use a professional service, then they have some level of protection. Sometimes we see Geriatric Care Managers getting involved with money as conservators. These services can run upward of $100 per hour just to get the bills done and the accounts reconciled! That is crazy! My article on the 7 Questions has been featured on their partner Newsletter. Be sure to check it out! Happy Valentines Day!

Wings Cares Women's Expo

I am speaking on March 8th at the Salem Waterfront Hotel for the Wings Cares North Shore Women's Expo. Wings Cares stands for Women in Networking Giving Support. Proceeds from the event are being donated to Art for Life Foundation, here on the North Shore. This group funds programs to help children in hospitals through art.

This is the first time that this event is being held and I think it will be very interesting. The topic that I am speaking on is Caring for an Aging Parent. The attendees are businesswomen on the North Shore who are balancing careers, kids and possibly other responsibilities, like taking care of their parents. People are always so baffled when they are thrown into the process of adult caregiving. It is almost like we feel that "this will never happen to me!"

I hope that I can give them a little direction in the time that I have allotted. The other topics are financial, balance related and political topics. It should definitely be interesting and it is GREAT to have it in Salem!!

What You Need to Know Before Hiring an In-home Caregiver for an Aging Adult or a Disabled Adult

Right at Home Provides Seven Key Questions to Ask Before Making a Decision

Recent studies estimate that 24 million caregivers, or about 16 percent of the population, provide care to adults ages 50 years or older in the United States. These people feel unprecedented pressure to find immediate assistance as they try to balance their own career and family with the care needs of their loved one. In the process, many unknowingly create a risky situation for everyone involved.

More and more families, in an attempt to save time and money, are hiring “underground” caregivers—those caregivers who are not affiliated with a company or professional organization that provides proper caregiver management and training. In fact, most underground caregivers are hired by families without a background check and thorough pre-screening process. Family members doing the hiring may not even know if the caregiver has legal status to work in the United States and are unaware of the ramifications of doing so. Moreover, most families are unaware of their responsibilities regarding employer taxes, insurance needs and provisions of workers compensation.

Many states have or are passing laws to protect families and against senior caregiver “horror stories”. In the meantime, Right at Home urges families to give the process of hiring a caregiver careful consideration. Right at Home encourages families to ask the caregiver agency or the independent caregiver the following questions at the start of the hiring process:

Seven Critical Questions to Ask Before Hiring In-home Caregivers:

1. What happens if the caregiver becomes ill or isn’t available? In other words, can the agency or the independent caregiver make immediate arrangements to provide continuous service to the person in need?

2. Who has legal responsibilities for social security and federal and state taxes, as well as unemployment insurance?

3. Is the caregiver legal to work in the U.S. and can the agency or the caregiver provide legal documentation of the caregiver’s status?

4. If the caregiver is injured, who is responsible for medical and other costs, such as unemployment and workers compensation insurance? Remember: Many homeowner insurance policies specifically exclude such injuries via clauses called domestic employee exclusions. This means the homeowner can be held responsible for the medical costs of an injured independent caregiver.

5. Have all proper checks been completed including a criminal history background check, a state abuse registry check, and have prior work references been contacted? A reliable agency will have completed these before hiring the caregiver. Families who hire caregivers not associated with an agency should conduct these procedures at their own expense.

6. Is the caregiver bonded and insured to cover any injury to the client, damage or theft? In addition, when an agency says it is “bonded,” family members should be sure to ask if their bond covers both injury and damages related to the caregiver working in the home.

7. Assuming a family member is not available to supervise paid caregivers at all times, what kind of documentation will be provided to substantiate the completion of services? In other words, what kind of proof will the family have that their loved one is actually receiving the much needed care for which the family is paying?

If a potential caregiver doesn’t have the time or resources to answer these important questions, it’s probably best to seek out a professional home care agency that takes responsibility for background checks, taxes and insurance liabilities. At Right at Home of Salem, we have the resources to take those precautions in order to provide peace of mind to those we serve. An important part of providing highly personalized and flexible care is making sure the family is protected, too.

About Right at Home

Right at Home offers in-home supportive care, personal care, home health aide and nursing assistance to seniors and disabled adults who want to continue to live independently. Right at Home directly employs all caregiving staff, each of whom are thoroughly screened, trained, bonded and insured prior to entering a client’s home. All ongoing care is monitored and supervised RN field staff supervisors. For more information on Right at Home, visit the company’s Web site at www.rightathomemass.net. To sign up for Right at Home’s free adult caregiving e-newsletter, Caring Right at Home, please go to www.caringnews.com.

Right at Home Leadership Conference

Jay and I are out at the Right at Home Leadership Conference in Cancun, Mexico. The conference is a collection of the 15 most successful Right at Home owners in the US. We are very proud to be in this group. We have spent the day with Alan Hager and the other senior management at Right at Home to talk about the current issues with our home care agencies and how to make them better.

This group of people is so knowledgable and committed to client care. I don't think there is any group of home care agency owners that has such a wonderful support system. This is the reason why Right at Home continues to be the most caring and innovative home care group in the the US. We have been talking about Right at Home University, the system we use to educate our caregivers and the Care Rewards system we use to reward our caregivers for giving wonderful, quality care. When Jay and I went to this conference last year, we learned so much from our peers, which translated into better home care for our clients. I suspect that 2008 will be the same! Adios!

Rosaleen in Salem Gazette and Marblehead Reporter

I was installed as the Second Vice President of North Shore Women in Business and there were a few really nice write ups.

I have always served the group, however now I see that I will definitely have more work!! This is a great group for me to talk with women about adult caregiving and issues that they may be facing with aging parents.

Alzheimer's Caregiver Connections Update

The conference last week was amazing. Despite the threat of a nor'easter, the Holiday Inn in Peabody was full. The speakers were amazing. The one thing that all the medical professionals talked about was the holistic (meaning many approaches) treatment of Alzheimer's disease. It was clear that the medications of today can slow the disease from it's path, but they all talked about diet and exercise as being part of the treatment. They all spoke about how leaving an Alzheimer's patient in front of the TV all day just adds to the progression of the disease and loss of skills.

They also talked about how changing an Alzheimer's patient's environment too much (going between children's homes), though might sound like a good idea to you and me, can be confusing and dangerous for the Alzheimer's person because they cannot do "new learning". Keeping things predictable is important. Dr. Paul Raia calls this Habilitation Therapy. This link is to a good article on the subject.

Joanne Koenig-Costa, the author of Learning to Speak Alzheimer's, gave the wrap up address. There wasn't a dry eye in the house when a longterm, care partner/spouse talked about her end-stage Alzheimer's husband and how their relationship now works when he can no longer talk or communicate. She talked about how love still exists. No one could have laid out the heartbreak of Alzheimer's disease to a family better than someone who has walked the path with a loved one and is now facing the end.

The one sad thing about the information is the prediction that there will be 14 million people in the United States with Alzheimer's disease in the year 2050 if we don't have a cure. Living longer is great, but the price we may have to be to do that is very steep. The grief that it may give our families is tremendous, because Alzheimer's does not last just a year....it can progress for up to 20 years.

One of the most beautiful things about our conference is the message that care partners need to take care of themselves first! The speakers kept giving the example of the airplane oxygen masks and how we should put ours on FIRST, then help the other person. Please find a support group if you are a care partner. You can find one through the Alzheimer's Association.