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If you are living in the Dallas, TX – Fort Worth, TX Metroplex and searching for in home care or home health care from a highly reputable home care agency, then this article can help by giving you one of the most important questions to ask, that you are most likely not to ask without this knowledge. Hint: it involves cost, but is not, “What is your home health agency rate?”.
For the past 34+ years as a provider of 24/7 home care (the past 15+ years as Director of Care Mountain home care agency in DFW) one of the most important questions, maybe the most important one, that virtually never gets asked is, “How much do the caregivers get paid?”. When it comes to rates, families ask only about the rate/cost paid to the home care agency provider and virtually never ask about the rate ultimately paid to the caregiver.
The rate paid to the caregiver by/through the home care agency has one of the most direct correlations to quality of care in the home care business. From my experience, the home health agencies in the Dallas – Fort Worth TX Metroplex with the higher caregiver pay rates have the highest continuity of quality care with the lowest caregiver turnover. Those home care agencies providing the best caregiver pay rates are better able to attract and retain the best caregivers.
The rate of caregiver turnover has a direct and indirect impact on continuity of quality of home care. The constant unfamiliarity and learning involved with each new caregiver is the biggest direct affect caregiver turnover has on quality of in home care. Some people argue that quality is not affected in staff turnover as long as the agency can replace each caregiver with one of competent skill set. No matter how skilled and experienced a replacement caregiver is, she/he still has to learn the uniqueness of your case in order to best apply their skills.
One of the most important determinants of continuity of quality home health care is in a caregiver’s ability to be proactive/preventative with a given client’s in home care. To best achieve this, a caregiver needs an in-depth recent work history with the client, which is only best obtained from working with that client over time. High caregiver turnover makes this much less likely.
The biggest indirect impact caregiver turnover has on continuity of home care quality involves its affect on the attitude of the client and their significant other(s). Attitudes are formed from the messages we tell ourselves over time. Some of the messages people tell themselves when caregivers turnover a lot are, “I must be doing something wrong”, or “I must not be a good person, because no on want’s to work with me”. Unhealthy negative internal messaging such as these, often lead to feelings of depression and resultant negative outcomes.
The other prominent affect on attitude is the negative self fulfilling prophecy that a client and their family can create in situations with extended periods of high home care caregiver turnover. In these cases their belief actually becomes that all the home care agencies are like this, which I have seen can often lead to a self fulfilling prophecy of such. These are the cases where you feel like you have already done something wrong just upon first appearance when walking into a prospective client’s home. Needless to say, this biased attitude based upon unrelated past experience with other agencies can make it more challenging for any new agency to gain a comfortable level of needed mutual trust for continuity of quality care.
. Care Mountain has consistently been one of the highest paid sources for in home caregivers, which is a big reason it’s caregiver turnover rate has been averaging just 4%, versus an 84% industry average. This has translated into the highest level of in home care quality in the Dallas – Fort Worth Area as evidenced by a ZERO State complaint history over 14+ years, ZERO deficiency State license survey, SIX Alzheimer’s Association caregiver of the year awards and always A+ rated by the North Central Texas Better Business Bureau. Please visit Care Mountain’s page for in home care for Beginners to get more details on client and caregiver rates.
The following links can provide you with caregiver pay rates as in home care caregivers, so you can compare to the rates your prospective caregivers will get: PayScale, Care.com, ZipRecruiter, Aging.Com, MyCNAjobs, Glassdoor and Indeed.
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2020-06-18 08:11:11
Gagan Bhalla is the Executive Director of Care Mountain Home Health Care. For over 19 years, Care Mountain has offered dedicated expertise in senior in-home care in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Managing seven locations across Texas, Gagan has committed his life to enhancing the well-being of seniors and their families needing home health care. Through insightful articles and blogs, he shares his wealth of knowledge, empowering families to make informed decisions about home care. Trust Gagan’s experience to guide you on the path to compassionate and professional senior care.