My grandfather recently came home from the nursing home and we’re looking for a LPN to come and dispense meds and do trach care twice a day. He’s pretty complex and probably shouldn’t be at home, but you can’t tell my grandmother anything of the sort.
I was just wondering has anyone here had experience with private duty/private pay nurses coming into your home? We’re in Ohio in a western suburb of Ohio if that helps at all. Taking care of him is really draining on me and my grandmother doesn’t see it. She wanted him home because the nursing home was very pricey and they don’t qualify for medicaid. We’re currently getting some home-care help but it’s just not enough seeing as how they only want to teach you and then leave.
Sadly, we’ve had nothing but problems with home health care and private duty nurses caring for my grandmother with Alzheimer’s. In five years, she’s had her credit card stolen four times by four different women. My mom’s been mostly successful in getting the charges reversed, but it’s cause a lot of stress and required a lot of visits to the police station.
I’d say check references very carefully. This is easier to do with a private duty nurse than a home health care company - they seem to send out anyone with a pulse. Despite their claims of vigorous back-ground checks on their employees, at least one of the thieves they sent to my grandmother’s home had a rap sheet a mile long (and is now serving jail time for the theft of my grandmother’s card.)
Private duty nursing does give you the opportunity to check out the background and references of a specific person, but it tends to be even more expensive than home health care.
I can’t say that I have direct experience with this; but, I have directly seen it go well before. When my ex-girlfriend was going to school to become an RN, she worked as a CNA. One of her patients asked her to work for him on weekends after he was released to go home. It worked incredibly well for both of them. He recieved the care he needed and not only was she paid well; but, he also taught her photography from his decades of experience as a professional.
There was one creepy thing about the guy though. I was in the area where they were shooting and my ex asked me to meet up with them. Later, he told her he was not going to pay her for that day because since I met up with them it felt more like a personal outing than work. I think that was his pervy way of being alone with her. So, I never met up with them again because I knew my ex really needed the money.
True. On the other hand, the biggest irony here is that…I became a home health nurse.
It’s quite possible this will show up in a google search so…
I still stand by what I said four years ago. Check carefully. Run your own background check on any long term caregivers; don’t trust the agency to do it for you. If at all possible, especially for the first few visits, try to have someone home with the patient, if your family member is at all confused or is bedridden. After that, make unannounced visits, and let yourself in with your own key so you can get some idea of what’s going on when you’re not there. It’s ridiculously easy to steal from, neglect or abuse a confused person who can’t see, hear or understand what’s going on.
(I didn’t know the proper terminology four years ago: the people stealing from my grandmother were Home Health Aids, hired from an agency to provide 12 hour shift care. They were not nurses, and not from Medicare paid home health agencies, which can only provide nurses and CNA’s for short (usually an hour), intermittent visits. Home Health Aids and Homemakers are more likely to be abusing or neglecting patients, in my experience, than LPNs and RNs. Our licenses make a very trackable and enforceable way to keep us on the straight and narrow. Unlicensed caregivers just start over again at a new agency or advertise privately and hope they don’t actually do a background check.)
