How do you find ‘round the clock home care for an aging relative without breaking the bank?
A man – I’ll call him George – was looking after his aunt. Even in her 90s, she was very active – even a bit aggressive at times – and seemed ill-fitted to live in a nursing home.
“She’s independent. She likes to walk around,” George explained.
“They would find her walking around all over the place, and nursing home staffs have trouble handling a person like that,” he explained of his aunt’s brief experience in a nursing home.
George’s aunt had a personality that was simply more restless and active than most people. Such a person wasn’t content to sit quietly with others in the common area, like nursing staffs would like them to do.
And his aunt wasn’t too happy with this confined type of lifestyle, either.
George’s own mother, on the other hand, was more easygoing than her sister, and was more ready to cope with the limitations of a nursing home. But each person handles life differently.
To start off with, the 96-year-old aunt needed constant care. And yet the cost of 24/7 in-home care was double the cost of the nursing home, George discovered.
Finding Your Own Caregivers
Working with an established home care agency cost too much, George figured. But George was a good networker and knew he could rely on his personal and professional contacts. He eventually found a lawyer who recommended several ethnic Polish women who could work together to take care of his aunt.
“I found three caregivers for my aunt” George recalled, “for a $16/hour flat fee – no time and a half.” This was for 24-hour care.
“They cooperate well and all of them can cook. They can prepare Polish meals, such as sausage and garumke.”
George was able to thus cut out the middleman and hire the caregivers directly. If he worked with the home care agency, he would be paying around $22 to $25 per hour. The agencies typically pay caregivers $12 to $14 per hour, more or less. Therefore George was able to pay the caregivers more than they would have received had they worked for an agency.
(Please note, however, that IRS law requires that caregivers be paid as W-2 workers, which means that the employer must take taxes out of their paychecks and pay the company’s share of Social Security and Medicare taxes.)
George was able to find a satisfactory solution to 24/7 caretaking. However, it took as many as six months to do the research, and not everyone has the time, or the personal contacts needed to find the right persons.
That’s why we recommend our approved vendors of senior services.
Do you need 24/7 home care? Or fewer hours than that? Contact one of the services in the link above.