Published November 2003

Home care offers another choice in senior living

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

Esther Cooper is an alarm clock, a hairdresser, a cook and a confidante. She helps clients shower in the morning and eat lunch in the afternoon. Along the way, she takes time to chitchat and reminisce with her elderly clientele.

It’s all in a day’s work for Cooper, a member of the home-care industry and a bridge between societal want and need.

Because surveys do show that people want to live in their homes for as long as they can. A recent report released by AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) found that three-quarters of Americans age 45 and older believe they will be able to stay in their current homes for the rest of their lives.

But statistics also show that to do that, some form of assistance is needed. According to Americans for Long-Term Care Security, more than 6 million elderly Americans need assistance if they are to live at home. And more than half of the U.S. population will require some type of long-term care during their lives, including home care.

That’s where Cooper, a caregiver with home-care agency CareForce Inc., comes in.

“Home care’s job is to help people stay at home for as long as possible, working in combination with adult children, friends and family,” said Susan “Sam” Miller, co-owner of the Lynnwood company.

Originally started in 1998 as a registered nursing pool, CareForce transitioned to home-care service as the need for such care became evident in phone call after phone call, Miller said. Now, the company has 80 caregivers on staff to service an area from north King County and Bothell to Everett and Snohomish.

As a home-care agency, CareForce provides “nonmedical care,” which can involve the provision of personal care by a nursing assistant, assistance in feeding, meal preparation and light housekeeping, Miller said. Depending on the home-care company, shopping, errands and transport to a doctor’s office also can be supplied.

All this is not be confused with home health care, which requires separate licensing by the state and involves some type of medical care, usually ordered by a health-care provider, Miller said.

“Home health care is visit-oriented, so the nurse comes in for a visit and then leaves. The home health aid that works for the health-care provider comes in and helps with the bath and then leaves, so it’s typically brief,” she added, whereas home care typically runs from a two- or three-hour visit to 24-hour care.

“We’re the practical side of helping someone stay in their home,” explained Sharon Bowers, director of Sunrise Home Care Agency in Everett.

Another distinction: home care is typically paid for through private pay, long-term care insurance and government-funded aid such as Medicaid and the Community Options Program Entry System, or COPES — but not Medicare, said Miller.

Again, it all depends on the agency. CareForce, for example, works with private pay and long-term insurance only, while Sunrise works with private pay as well as government-funded programs.

And while home-care agencies are one way to obtain a professional caregiver, it’s not the only way, Miller said.

“You can hire people privately, but what you have to do then is advertise, interview, do background checks, take care of payroll and take care of taxes. You are taking the risk in terms of insurance issues and liability issues,” she said.

CareForce has worked with clients on both sides of the staffing spectrum: those who use CareForce exclusively and those who hire a private caregiver and use CareForce’s services when their caregiver is ill or takes a vacation, Miller added.

Whatever a person’s preference, the demand for home care has grown as people have begun to understand their retirement living options, Bowers said.

“Establishing a good home-care system now is good for the boomers coming up,” she added.

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