Anonymous wrote:Companion Care at least in Northwest DC, which you can hire by the hour, and it’s usually done by youngish retired professionals, is like $100 an hour.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a market for these services, and "companion" is actually one of the fastest growing health care jobs on the job market. You can pay a "companion" less than someone with healthcare training. But bottom line is that people are a lot more willing to pay to have someone watch their kids than they are to have someone watch their parents. People easily work 60k into their budget for little Larla and Larlo, but will hesitate to spend $200 a week on mom or dad.

That's because mom and dad are supposed to save for their own care.

Right! So many people with small kids save up for year or even a decade to afford the daycare years (I did) and they delay retirement savings while doing it. You think we want to spent 50k a year on it?! When my parents are elderly, I'll likely be in my late 40s-50s and won't want to stop my own retirement savings.

Something that helped my grandma was having a college student live with her. The college student had the entire upstairs, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, to herself. She ate dinner with grandma 3 nights a week and cooked the meals. They were simple meals like spaghetti and meatballs, rotisserie chicken, etc. She picked up after herself downstairs (like cleaning her dishes), but didn't have to do any chores for grandma. Grandma had a cleaning lady once a week who also cleaned upstairs. Her main role was just to be there at night in case something happened.

It worked out great. College student lived for free (I think they did give her money too and paid utilities and food) and was mostly home studying. When she went on trips, my aunts and uncles stepped in. Aunts and uncles also rotated the other nights of the week taking grandma out to dinner or cooking for her. She wasn't required to spend a lot of time with grandma other than the 3 dinners, but she was friendly to her and they watched TV together because the girl was nice.

Anonymous wrote:It's really annoying, the jobs that home health care aids aren't allowed to do, that I as a family caregiver have to do with absolutely no training.

Anything to do with medication - that's on me. You'd have to hire an RN or someone with medication management certification - and even then, they probably wouldn't be able to stay on top of making sure refills get followed up on, conecting with the insurance company or Medicare for prior authorizations, etc.

Any anything to do with finger or toenail clipping, maintenance. That's on me, too. The aides can file nails but not clip, trim or deal with ingrown nail issues.

Any anything to do with constipation like administering a suppository or an enema. They can wipe but nothing more.

These three things are the reason people end up in a nursing home, if they don't have a "loved one" willing to help them.

Anonymous wrote:You can hire someone to do this work, but if you want someone who can make independent decisions you are going to need to pay more than home health care salaries, and you will probably need to hire them full-time to be dependable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of people who do this unless you are in some isolated backwater. Reminding to take medication is one thing but dispensing it is another. Check the laws for your jurisdiction and don’t ask a companion/housekeeper to do anything illegal.

Oh I am not hiring anyone (I wish I could) but I don’t understand the dispensing thing. Do you mean like giving someone a pill with a glass of water? And maybe doing eye drops?
It’s so stupid someone needs a license for it. I do it for my dad with no license and I’d totally allow someone else responsible enough to do it if they were willing!

I assume if somehow you screwed up the medication and sent your dad to the hospital or worse…your siblings wouldn’t sue you.

Are you claiming if this unlicensed caregiver manages to screw it up, you would just laugh it off?

It may seem silly, but so much of medicine and elder care is just “cover your ass” cost in the US due to lawsuits.

I mean…many assisted living facilities call the fire department if someone falls down because they don’t have the properly licensed people to pick them up. It’s a huge cost to local governments.

Anonymous wrote:People who have money have access to the labor market for substitute daughters.

Anonymous wrote:OP really out here wondering why she can't find servants. "If I had more money I’d love someone to be a substitute daughter to my father"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of people who do this unless you are in some isolated backwater. Reminding to take medication is one thing but dispensing it is another. Check the laws for your jurisdiction and don’t ask a companion/housekeeper to do anything illegal.

On the flip side, make sure they don't do anything illegal. Elder abuse and theft and all that.

NP. This is my fear with my aging parents.

Anonymous wrote:Everyone keeps comparing the job to taking care of children and want to pay that same rate, but this is generally a worse job than taking care of a kid, pulling from the same population.

Kids develop skills instead of lose them…which is hard.
Would you rather help a small 3 year old get dressed or a full grown adult?
How about help them clean up after a bathroom accident?
Most kids/toddlers are happy/joyful/laughing for at least part of the day.
If a three year old gets hard headed and insists on doing something unsafe you can pick them up and move them away from the unsafe thing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s a caregiver. Most just sit there and listen to the old person. They might do light cooking (make a hot dog), or help order groceries, but that’s it. It’s unusual for them to do more.
Beware of caregiver stealing or exploiting the elderly for money. It’s very common.
Btdt with both parents over a period of 25 yrs.

Okay this is a waste of money, unless you wanted your parents to have conversation partners.
Yes I know about the stealing. I assume even the bg checked ones still steal?

Probably a pretty good assumption, given how hard it is to find people to do this job.

This is what I don’t understand also! If the job is as easy as described (listen, warm up food, help order groceries) why aren’t more people doing it?

Because it doesn't pay. Getting paid like a teen babysitter is not viable for most people.
And the people you'd most want to do this - the reliable background-checked people with good sense - can get a bunch of different jobs that pay better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of people who do this unless you are in some isolated backwater. Reminding to take medication is one thing but dispensing it is another. Check the laws for your jurisdiction and don’t ask a companion/housekeeper to do anything illegal.

It can actually be easier to find good people to do this in those "isolated backwaters."

Why do you think this is? Is it because there’s fewer jobs there? Or more people with old fashioned work ethic?

Both, and more. PP here.

A friend's DW had a stroke. They live in fairly rural VA. This friend has exhausted himself caring for her for the past two years and finally admitted to needing respite care help. His brother's girlfriend is a nurse who is semi-retired and was looking for work, but didn't necessarily want the stress of an actual nursing job at the hospital and knew she didn't want to work in a nursing home or dialysis center and only wanted part time work. It ended up working out perfectly for our friend -- this retired nurse hadn't yet found anything that would work for her hours-wise, and she is loving and highly dependable (as many older country people are). Most jobs out there (one of the counties in Central Va) pay min wage or close to it, so it's easier to find people who don't resent the wages; if hiring for a job like this you aren't competing with jobs that pay more the way most jobs do here in NoVA. In NoVA, if you are reliable, you can probably do better than min wage companion work, but out in the Shenandoah Valley, there's not much competition for good workers. People are just happy to have the work. So yeah, there are fewer jobs, and yeah, many of the folks looking for work are pretty reliable.

Anonymous wrote:There's also adult day care. A neighbor has this and the bus picks him up every morning and takes him to their place for activities with other old people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of people who do this unless you are in some isolated backwater. Reminding to take medication is one thing but dispensing it is another. Check the laws for your jurisdiction and don’t ask a companion/housekeeper to do anything illegal.

Oh I am not hiring anyone (I wish I could) but I don’t understand the dispensing thing. Do you mean like giving someone a pill with a glass of water? And maybe doing eye drops?
It’s so stupid someone needs a license for it. I do it for my dad with no license and I’d totally allow someone else responsible enough to do it if they were willing!

So stupid ... until your loved one overdoses and dies. Use your head.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s a caregiver. Most just sit there and listen to the old person. They might do light cooking (make a hot dog), or help order groceries, but that’s it. It’s unusual for them to do more.
Beware of caregiver stealing or exploiting the elderly for money. It’s very common.
Btdt with both parents over a period of 25 yrs.

Okay this is a waste of money, unless you wanted your parents to have conversation partners.
Yes I know about the stealing. I assume even the bg checked ones still steal?

Probably a pretty good assumption, given how hard it is to find people to do this job.

This is what I don’t understand also! If the job is as easy as described (listen, warm up food, help order groceries) why aren’t more people doing it?

Because it pays minimum wage, the hours are bad, and you get treated like crap and often are in a terrible home environment (dirty house, aggressive pets, client who doesn't necessarily want you there, problematic relatives showing up, whatever -- a friend of mine quit this kind of job because the woman she was supposed to be supporting had a kid who kept dropping off her two small children, considering her a free babysitter).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are lots of people who do this unless you are in some isolated backwater. Reminding to take medication is one thing but dispensing it is another. Check the laws for your jurisdiction and don’t ask a companion/housekeeper to do anything illegal.

It can actually be easier to find good people to do this in those "isolated backwaters."

Why do you think this is? Is it because there’s fewer jobs there? Or more people with old fashioned work ethic?

Because in those communities, everyone knows each other and grew up around one another or knows someone who did. They have all been in each other's orbit for decades. There's a true social fabric to these places.

Wage rates are low so Medicaid rates are better reimbursement compared to local wages.