The Best Home Care Plans Are Decided as a Group

It’s time to arrange home care services for your parents. Before you dive in and make the decisions for them, gather all close family members and family friends. You need to make decisions as a group to ensure the best care plan is created.

Get Group Input on the Things Your Parents Need

You see where your parents struggle when you’re there each Saturday morning. You can’t expect their struggles to be the same later in the afternoon.

Have everyone who spends time with your parents share what they see. Your brother may notice that laundry doesn’t get done until he stops by to carry the laundry basket downstairs. Your cousin saw your dad fall a half-hour after he took his blood pressure medication.

Use this input to build a list of the things your parents need help doing. With multiple people giving input, you get a comprehensive list. Ask your parents for their input, too.

Research Together

You’ll all want to chip in and research services. If your parents do many things independently, they may not need a lot of help. It could just be companionship that’s most important. Your widowed dad has no one around all week and gets lonely.

Look for agencies that offer companionship services. Ask a specialist how many hours you must arrange each week or month and work from there. If your parents need more than that, find out what an extensive home care plan will cost.

Discuss Ways to Save

Talk as a group about things that your parents can do to reduce their monthly expenses. Your cousin may have a family cellphone plan with space to add two more phones. Your parents could save money and join your cousin’s plan.

Your parents have a warehouse membership. You also have a membership. See if it would save money to get a membership together or to drop your parents’ membership and bring them with you when you go shopping.

Talk About Who Can Help Out

Your parents probably have a tight budget for home care services. While they will benefit from the care professional caregivers provide, they’re limited to the money they have available.

Friends and family members who are close to your parents can chip in and reduce the number of hours a home care aide needs to be around. If your sister has Wednesday free, she could help out for a few hours that day.

As you build a list of who can help out, you’ll see where your parents need help. Those are the hours to fill with services from a home care agency.

Once your group has talked about the things your parents do well on their own and the areas where need help, talk to a home care specialist. Find out what services are available in your parents’ town. See what prices are and work together to cover their needs while also matching their budget.