Caller Asks About Hiring Caregivers

Terry in South Carolina. Terry, good morning. How are you feeling?

Well, I'm feeling pretty good. I am a new caregiver, less than a year now. My wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Early onset, we were both pretty young. That's getting younger every day, by the way, Terry.

Yeah, it was quite a shock, but things have progressed rather quickly over the last 10 months since a major episode occurred last fall. What I'm looking for is how to find like a caregiver that would possibly want to live in the home. But you just don't want anybody. You don't want somebody who's going to be a slacker.

You want somebody that's going to be a friend. We have a very, we have a good size home, buried in 25 acres of forest, so nobody receives us. Do you guys have resources or have clients?

Well, no, there's too big of a net to be able to pull from, so I wouldn't be able to aggregate all that information. By the way, whereabouts in South Carolina? I'm from South Carolina. What part of South Carolina are you living in? The upstate area, Spartanburg-Greenville area. I was born and raised in Anderson, and my folks still live there.

That's a great area of the country. I tell you what I would recommend starting with is finding a good service first, because they're responsible for weeding out folks that, you know, you want to get the right person. And if you hire the wrong person and they come into your home, and then you got to get them out of your home. To me, it would make more sense to find a service that already does all your background checks, all that kind of stuff, so you don't have to. And start with that before you start bringing someone into your home, because extricating them from your home may be a bit of a challenge, if it's the wrong match. And so I think you'd start with that, and then maybe even work with a service, a separate service, to do some background check on somebody, and give yourself time to find that right person. It's going to take some time to find somebody you would want to bring into your home to live there. You really need to filter that person out strongly, because, you know, they're going to promise you the moon when they first show up.

In the first couple of weeks, it'll be great. Then after a while, you realize, oh, man, I'm stuck with this. Then you got a victim, and that can become a sticky wicket, and you don't need that nightmare. I would highly recommend finding a reputable service, a home care service, that does this, and then that's their responsibility to weed those people out, and you don't have to deal with that kind of drama.

It may cost you a little bit more, but, you know, what is the old saying that if, you know, you think it's expensive hiring a professional, try hiring an amateur. And it just, you just don't want that drama. You don't know who you're going to bring into your home that way, and it would be better if you had a third-party service that could make sure that they've had proper background checks, drug screenings. They've vetted them. They're responsible for moving them out. If they call in sick, and they live in your home, then what are you going to do?

You know? So those are things you want to give some… Yeah, we have used some services, but my wife will absolutely love this last caregiver that we have, and she was with us for two weeks and got in a horrible car accident two nights ago and is hospitalized and may not be back for another three months. We just don't know. So now we're back to square one, and this person didn't live with us, but, you know, I'm just trying to figure out what are my options as a caregiver that will, you know, that I can bring somebody in. It'll be a friend to my wife that, you know, I'm just trying to find the right match. Well, I think the fact that what you've been through with this most recent one with the car wreck drives by point home, because if that person had lived with you, then you would have somebody who was recuperating from a car wreck living at your home, and you would still need a caregiver. Yes.

You're tracking with me? So that's the kind of thing you want to avoid, if at all possible, and hiring a service, like I said, it may stretch you a little bit financially, but imagine how you'd be stretched right now if you had somebody recuperating, however much you liked them, if they were recuperating at your home, and now you have a wife with Alzheimer's and somebody who's recuperating for three months from a car wreck. You don't need that drama in your life. You just don't. And so the service, working with the service who can, that's their job is to find the qualified workers, and to make sure, and then you meet with them regularly until you get into a good rhythm to make sure that this is a good match. Because here's the deal, Terry, I mean this, you and I both know this, this is not going to get easier for you.

Okay? So you're assembling your team right now for what's coming, and you've got X amount of time to prepare for that, to get your home, to get your setup, your team around you, because right now you're functioning, you're doing okay, but this is only going to get more challenging. And the sooner you have a solid team around you, the better that you're going to be able to navigate those choppy waters when you get to them, because there's some rough rapids coming your way.

Get that team together and having some professionals in there, as opposed to you trying to somehow figure this out yourself, is going to make your life a lot easier. Yeah, I can see the wisdom in that. You know where wisdom comes from, you know, good judgment, good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment. And you were talking to a guy who's made a lot of bad judgment calls, and I've gone out there and tried to find somebody, brought some people into my home to help with my wife over the years, and then that was just, you know, I had some successes, and I had some dismal failures. And, and ultimately when I went to a service that came in and I worked with them, I found the value of this. And there's a, there's a wonderful service in Nashville that I, that I were great friends with, and they have resources on their, their website and they're not going to be able to serve people in your area, but they got resource they put out there on their, on their website of just stuff you can read and, you know, educate yourself on that's caregivers by whole care. Caregivers by whole care in Nashville, Tennessee. Yeah, they're not, they're not in your area, it's a local company but I was so into the lady that owns that runs it as a nurse, and I've been friends with them for a very long time, and they have a wealth of information that you can just educate yourself with and what you're looking for help you drill this thing down so that you find that right partner and try not to contract with anyone else in your area that doesn't bring the level of what they do at this company I just sent you to just look and see what they offer, and then try to find something that's similar to that in your area, because I think they're a gold standard for it. Caregivers by whole care WHOL. And they are in Nashville, Tennessee. So, when we lived in Nashville, I've been friends with those folks for a long time and, and they helped me through some very difficult times and I think, but, but I've watched how they set up their structure.

They're not a fly by night there's a lot of companies out there that are, you know, throwing business models together pretty quick for this big need, and you don't want that you really want to have people that guess that have some seasoning to them that have thought through these things, and they've looked at all the contingencies that you have it. And they've looked at all the things that you have not done and so, and this applies across the board not just dealing with Alzheimer's deal with special needs children, whatever, it's across the board. But, you know, yeah, financially may stretch you a bit. But in the long run it's a better investment in you and in your wife as well.

So, we have the insurance, and that has helped considerably, we have a very good LTC policy so that will take us many years into this, that, that is indeed a great blessing to have so, but use that wisely, use it very wisely, do your due diligence, seek out people that are doing this and have been doing it for a while, what are they doing right, how does that work for your family, and really try to avoid bringing someone into your home until you have vetted them, like they were auditioning, I mean you know they were applying to be on the National Security Council kind of thing. Okay. Vet, vet, vet. I mean that's that's that's the key. And the point is you're doing this now and not doing it a place of desperation. This is the whole point of the show today of the way we started off because if you start if you say I'll wait till this gets out of my control, well then you're scrambling. Don't scramble, plan, you know, and start strategically thinking ahead. That's how you do it. If you wait to the last moment and you're freaking out, you're liable to get somebody in there and then it'll end up being a disaster for you.

How do I know this? Well I've done that. So, take my advice I'm not using it. No, I've done this, and so it's super important that you spend the time on the front end vetting this, this person out whoever or people out there maybe more than one because if somebody gets sick causing sick, your wife's Alzheimer's not going to take a sick day. Okay, so you got to have, you got to have backups for your backups.

When this thing starts getting into into some steam under it. So, I appreciate the call I hope that does that track with you, Terry. It does, it does, you know, and like I said we're early on to this, but you know I'm trying just to find the right mix. But thank you so much. You are quite welcome, and I appreciate very much the call, appreciate you listening. It's always good to talk to South Carolina folks. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. We are glad that you're with us. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840 will be right back.