We specifically worked with the V.A. office out of Cedar Hills in 2024.
Senior aging is a delicate process and in an individuals final years their care needs often evolve and change over time. At 97 years of age suffering from a former stroke in 2019 our family member has required special care for many years. If you're new to working with caregivers you'll quickly discover a few things: ONE - it's ridiculously expensive! Sadly mostly insurance doesn't cover the hourly costs. Average rate is in 2024 is $45 an hour ($20-$25 goes to caregiver), you'll be lucky to get less with quality or a company who will negotiate the rate. Considering we've been doing between 8-14 hour shifts a day seven days a week, you can see how fast that adds up, that's $18K-$20K a month just in caregiving!! TWO - the quality of caregivers and companies varies a lot and has a very limited and repetitive pool of caregivers. Sometimes you get great caregivers, sometimes you don't, doesn't matter what company or what level of care. It's amazing how many caregiver seem to have zero people skills or training.
There are three basic levels of caregivers most companies provide:
(1) Basic Care - provides companionship, bathroom assistance, meals, light house keeping and monitoring. Usually greenhorns fresh out of high school or off the street it would seem. Sometimes we'd get caregivers with zero experience or training.
(2) Advanced Care - ability to do bed or wheelchair transfers, more help with mobility issues, meals, help with meds, toileting, higher level of attention to care and monitoring, advanced health tasks and help keeping things sanitary.
(3) Hospice Care - about as advanced level of home care as possible without being a nurse or holding a medical degree. Should be required to spend quality time and companionship, meals, know how to work with dementia or other illness, help with meds, emotional support, toileting, diaper changing, full body cleansing (bed bound clients) ... etc.
In Portland the two main big companies are Home Instead and Visiting Angels, there are many other smaller organizations but these are the biggest and most popular. We've worked with about 5 companies over 5 years of care service, most are terrible at least 50% percent of the time. Also be ready for no-shows, caregivers who can't figure out the lock box to get in, can't cook, don't know how to make coffee, don't speak English, might burn your house down letting toast catch on fire ... it really is a treacherous path sometimes.
Visiting Angels will sell you their whole sales pitch of how they are in business because they care about people, not the paycheck. What a crock ! We offered to keep working with them or give them all our shifts if they would negotiate the rate, meanwhile Home Instead was open to negotiating the rate after pulling some teeth ... we asked if V.A. would be willing the match the rate to keep our business. Absolute zero interest or willing to negotiate. So it's see ya later! They didn't care.
Other complaints about V.A. - Our family member needed advanced care at the time, which required transfers from bed to wheel chair and bathroom and lounging chair. V.A. would often send us newbies with zero transfer experience, no muscle strength, and no previous training !! Just throw em' in there and hope for the best and that they don't injure themselves or their clients. Awful!
Some caregivers will sit in another room their entire shift and only visit the client when called, others feel like they need to be busy doing something the entire time. The leaving the client alone the entire time is completely unacceptable.
As crappy as Home Instead can be, at least they were willing to negotiate the rate, considering how much money over the years we've given them they most certainly should anyways! Knowing only months may remain in a persons life giving a little financial break is at least a little show of compassion. Visiting Angels surely doesn't fit that motto and surely doesn't care.
