This Is Why You Should Hire Home Care Through An Agency, Not Independently
When you decide that you'll benefit from a home care worker visiting you daily or even just once a week, your pursuit of this person will typically take you to the internet. Browsing for home health aides that serve your area will generally reveal home health agencies and people working independently. While there's little doubt that some independent health aides are reputable and would do a good job of addressing your needs, there are also risks to hiring someone out of the classifieds. Although you may pay a little bit more for someone from an accredited home care agency, here's why you should go this route.
Agency Aides Are A Safer Choice
Hiring someone who is essentially a stranger to enter your home and care for you can be a risky proposition, given that you don't know the person and his or her background. When you hire a home health agency, however, you can feel confident that any aide who visits your home will have gone through an extensive criminal background check and is also insured by the agency. This means that you don't have to worry about the aide taking something from your home or even harming you — and this might not be the case with someone who works independently.
You'll Have What Support You Need
When you hire someone from an official home care agency, you'll often have the same aide visit your home repeatedly. However, if this person is on vacation or ill, the agency will arrange to have a different aide visit you — and he or she will have access to your patient files, so the transition will be seamless. When you hire someone independently, you're at the mercy of whether this person will show up. If the person is absent for whatever reason, you'll be left scrambling to find a replacement or have to struggle without someone to help you.
You'll Get Better Care
It's almost certain that any aide provided by an official home care agency will provide you with better care. Accredited home health aides are constantly receiving training and enhancing their education so that they're on the cutting age of home-based health. This isn't necessarily the case for someone you hire independently; he or she may indeed have health training, but it could be several years old with some of the methods that are practiced now obsolete. You can't take a chance with your health, so it's advantageous to always hire an agency for your in-home care.
For more information, visit a website like http://www.inyourhomecares.com/.
