5 Check points a Care Manager Should Know Before Partnering With a Private Duty Home Care Agency

Before you partner with a private duty home care agency, check out these 5 items
1.Before you partner with a private duty homecare agency, as a geriatric care manager, know if your state requires they be licensed .If so ,you want to know if they meet licensing requirement in your state and are they licensed.
2.You want to know the pool of care providers they have available is adequate for your needs.. How many do they employ in their pool. You want to know ,as your caseload grows they have at least 100 care providers to draw from because you will need at least 100 care providers to choose from if you have 10=-15 cases with at least 5 with 24-hour care.
3. Do they have care providers who are bi- lingual several languages. If the aging population you serve has clients who want care providers who speak Mandarin, Spanish or any other language, you need bilingual care providers. Do they have care providers who can drive, lift, transfer, work with Alzheimer’s clients – in other words multiple skill levels that clients may need and demand.
4. Is the salary they offer care providers a living wage? The work of care providers is incredibly hard and low paid. Care provider’s lift more than truck drivers, work long hours and sometimes have to work 3 jobs just to support their families on the low hourly pay. . If the care providers they use are low paid you will get what you pay for , which can be clients firing you for poor care.
5. Do they have a staffing coordinator or is the owner or an aide doing the staffing. If they have no staffing coordinator do not use them. This person schedules and coordinates day-to-day activities staffing for clients. This job is the lifeblood of the agency and of your clients. They must find and deliver, these care providers through a ccomputer program designed for staffing to come up with the right care provider, with the right skills at the right time in as many as 25 cases at a time. They replace care providers who call in sick, quit and are fired on a regular basis and keep the stream of staffing steady so your cases are staffed and your clients are happy. You are only as strong as your weakest link and that is both the care provider and the staffing coordinator.
So, the agency must have a staffing coordinator and she or he must have a staffing data base or do not use them.
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