When dealing with an in-home health care agency, it’s important to find out as much as possible, in advance, about the agency itself and about the individual caregivers that you will be assigned. For that purpose, make sure you create a list of questions that can help you set up a valid interviewing process, so you can find out as much as possible about the person you will hire:
- What are your main qualifications and what do you specialize in? Before considering anything else, you have to know whether or not the caregiver in question can actually help you. If they specialize in the level of medical care that you require assistance with, and they can handle most (or preferably all) of the tasks and daily chores you need them to do for your elderly family members, then you can consider working with them.
- How long have you been doing this type of work? Any expert will tell you that experience is very important for most lines of work. In this case, experience can sometimes be extremely crucial, as your family member’s health and safety might be hanging in the balance.
- Are you licensed to handle any medical care activities? Sometimes medical care can be important even if your aging parent doesn’t have any seemingly serious medical problems. Emergencies can still occur, and you need to make sure you are relying on someone who won’t just freeze up at the first sign of trouble.
- How can you help in an emergency? Emergencies can be the most stressful and difficult to deal with, especially when the result could be life or death. You will have to observe the caregiver’s answer carefully with regards to this question and the ramifications that their answer might have, should you choose to accept their offer and their services.
- Do you have any references? What can you tell me about any past jobs you’ve had dealing with old people with disabilities? With these questions, you can have a more casual an informal conversation, coming up with additional follow-up questions based on their answers. The goal is to get the caregiver to open up a little more and tell you some stories that can help you relate to them better and determine what kind of person he or she is. They will also help you find out whether or not they actually enjoy their work.
- Would you be happy with the specified work hours, or do you need a more flexible schedule? This can usually be used as a trick question, as you are typically looking for someone who isn’t too specific about their work hours, and who can accommodate your schedule instead. However, if you’re not too particular about your schedule, and you just want someone who can help you out, then you can just go along with whatever they answer.
- What type of fee and benefits would you expect? You can expect the answer to this question to be very diverse, depending on what each caregiver can offer and what they would require from you. Use their answers to compare offers between different caregivers that you’ve met throughout the interviewing process.
These questions should help you profile each of your interviewed senior home care services Denver CO caregivers. You can then compare their answers and formulate a hierarchy based on which you can select one or more in-home health care providers to hire, depending on your specific needs.