Finding Quality Help: 4 Tips for Finding Good Elderly Caregivers

26 October 2018

Jaime Allen

When looking for help with the care of your elderly parents, it can sometimes be hard to find someone you trust. Elderly care is a growing field in the healthcare world due to many baby boomers increasing in age. Unfortunately, it is also a growing field of prey for crooks and scam artists. If you are looking for someone to help an elderly friend or family member, think about what you will need them to help with. Instead of just getting someone's daughter who has time to help, think about how to protect your parents against theft or elderly abuse. Here are a few things to consider when looking for help.

1. Insurance Coverage. One place to start when looking for elderly care is to contact your insurance company. Depending on your coverage, home health nurses and aides may be covered. Even if your friend or family member needs additional services from someone else, a home health nurse may limit the amount of time that person may spend in the home and decrease the cost of service.

2. Qualifications. Not all elderly care companions are created equal. You are not looking for someone to babysit your parents but to help them with their activities of daily living, or maybe to help them get to and from their appointments. Depending on what you need, you can demand qualifications from individuals who may be interested in the position. Make sure that they have a valid driver's license or a current certified nursing assistant (CNA) license. It is okay to change an individual's salary based on their qualifications. Businesses use this practice regularly, so why can't you if you are hiring someone to work for you?

3. Experience. Just because someone has the qualifications to be of help does not mean that they know what they are doing. Discuss the experience of a potential caregiver in depth. Do they have children? Have they ever held a similar position? If so, how did that go, and why did they leave? Ask for specific experiences with their last employer. Talk about how they handled stressful situations and how you would like similar situations to be handled. Take the time to really discuss their experience. This can save you headaches and heartaches in the future.

4. Rapport. Rapport is a technical term for how easy someone is to get along with. Rapport varies based on every individual, their preferences and personality. Take the time to make sure that you get along easily with whoever will be providing care to your elderly friends and family. More importantly, make sure that a strong rapport is built between the employee and the elderly person directly. If they don't like them, there is no point in hiring them. 

Contact businesses that specialize in providing elderly care like Polish Helping Hands.

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