Home health care is a rapidly growing area in the healthcare industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics anticipates a 36% rise in job opportunities between 2018 and 2028, which is much faster than other Industries. As a home health aide, you may have stumbled into one of the most in-demand careers in the home healthcare market.
You won’t be required to have a college degree, and in many cases, even a high school diploma, to enjoy the benefits of working in the medical profession. There are home health aide certifications available that your employer may require. In order to work for agencies funded by Medicaid or Medicare, home health aides must meet minimum training requirements, which a home care agency may help you attain.
Are You Working for a Home Healthcare Agency or a Family?
As a home health aide, you have the option of working directly for a family or being hired by an agency. Although you may have worked directly for a family of a friend or close relative, your best professional option is to work for an agency that can provide you with additional benefits and coverage. But no matter who you work for, you’ll be working directly in your patient’s home a few hours every day, or every week. Some home health aides work full-time with one patient. It all will depend on the needs of the patient and family. In some circumstances, weekend or evening hours may be requested.
What Should You Look for in an Employer as a Home Health Aide?
When you choose to work for an agency, you’ll have the benefit of spending your time at work instead of looking for work. At Anodyne, we work hard to help our home health aides find the right opportunities that will help to grow your career and professional development. We know it’s important for our professionals to earn a consistent income and receive great benefits, and so that’s what we provide.
When you’re weighing the differences between working directly for a family or through an agency, it’s important to consider some of the additional benefits you receive by working with Anodyne. Our home health aides receive weekly paychecks that are deposited directly into their bank accounts. While families may not be able to offer additional pay, we offer our home health aides vacation pay, paid holidays and sick pay.
In addition, we offer our home health aide training program free to our employees to help them provide the best care possible to their patients. Our goal is to offer our clients great care that helps them recover quickly and move on toward independence. Our home health aides receive ongoing training that helps them achieve that goal. This includes paid in-service training, so they are compensated for their time.
What Are Your Duties as a Home Health Aide?
Home health aides can provide a variety of services to their clients, including assistance with personal tasks, housekeeping, planning appointments and arranging transportation. In some cases, home health aides will shop for groceries and prepare meals to meet their clients’ diet specifications and will help with light housekeeping duties such as washing dishes, vacuuming and doing laundry.
When you are hired by a private client, those duties may be inconsistent and may change weekly. This requires some flexibility on your part as this will also impact the hours you work for the family and therefore your income. When you work for an agency, like Anodyne, the patient’s family contracts with us to provide a certain number of hours and specific duties. While those may change for your clients, if this impacts your hours and income, you have the option of picking up additional clients with us.
Are You Ready to Enjoy the Benefits of Working With Anodyne?
It is a gift to be able to help others in their homes as they recover from illness or provide assistance that allows the elderly to age at home. At the same time, at Anodyne we recognize the challenges inherent in the job and strive to compensate you for your time and effort. If you are ready to enjoy the benefits of working with families and Anodyne, call us today – we are excited about working together to provide the best care possible to our patients.