4 Tips for Interviewing Home Health Workers

Hiring a home health worker is a process that requires careful research and scrutiny. After all, not only will you have to trust this person or agency with your medical treatment, but you also be granting them access to your home. Here are five questions you need to be sure to ask when you are interviewing health workers to come to your home to deliver care.

1. Who handles all paperwork and payroll issues for the worker?

When employing anyone, there is a tremendous amount of paperwork that must be taken care of to ensure proper compliance with taxes, insurance and disability, and social security. An advantage to hiring from an agency as opposed to a sole individual, is that they handle all of the paperwork on their end, so you simply receive care and pay your fees. This often comes at an added expense, but for some it is often worth it not to have the added stress.

2. Do you accept Medicare?

If an agency is medicare-certified that means that you can pay using medicare, the government’s health insurance provider for seniors. Agencies are required to meet certain standards in order to become certified, so this is a mark of professionalism and quality care.

3. What kind of background check do you do?

Any business where workers or technicians are sent into the homes of their clients and customers typically do some kind of background screening on all applicants. Being able to trust the person that provides you care is an important facet of maintaining a stress free lifestyle while undergoing treatment.

4. Are your workers bonded?

If an agency says that their home health employees are bonded, this means they are insured to replace anything the worker may break or steal while on the job. The type of coverage varies, so you may want to ask for specifics.

5. Do you check driving records?

If you will need to be driven anywhere as a part of your treatment, for instance a dialysis center, you may want to inquire about the level of care that goes into researching potential employees’ driving histories.

To speak with a home healthcare provider now about the level of quality medical care you can expect to receive, click here!

3 Things You Can Do This Month To Improve Your Health

Do you wake up most mornings feeling tired and sluggish? Do you constantly have aches and pains throughout the day? Do you often feel stressed? Chances are, with your busy lifestyle and your ever-growing to-do list, you have not made much time for your self and your health. Or, maybe you want to be healthier, but you just do not know what to do. Well, consider this your health education. Here are five things you can start doing this month to improve your health.

1. Eat a Nutritious Breakfast

It is astounding how few people eat breakfast in the morning, or often worse, consider breakfast to be coffee and some sugary fried pastry. Think about it. When you wake up, your body has already gone 8-10 (ideally) hours without nourishment while you have been asleep. When we wake up and skip breakfast our body goes into starvation mode, causing our body chemistry to change to prefer foods with high amounts of carboyhydrates, which is stored as fat in the body. Eating a protein- and fiber-rich breakfast every morning is one of the best things you can do for your health.

2. Hydrate

At a minimum, you should be consume eight ounces of water at least eight times a day. Water improves every single process in your body, from circulation to the digestion and absorption of food nutrients, to the electrical processing in the brain and nervous system. Subjects who suffered from chronic pain were instructed to drink eight glasses of water a day. Within two weeks significant improvements were seen in their level of pain, and higher energy levels and an improved sense of health was reported.

3. Take a Multi-Vitamin

While eating a nutritious diet is one of the most important components of your health management plan, it can be difficult to get all of the nutrients and minerals that your body needs to stay healthy. Taking a multi-vitamin is a great way to counteract the lack of key nutrients in modern diets. This daily act alone has been shown to have significant effects on the prevention of heart disease, diabetes, prostate and colorectal cancer, and osteoporosis.

If you add these three simple activities to your normal daily routine, there is no doubt that you will see a dramatic improvement in your health. Remember to always get a screening from your doctor to get a personalized health education tailored specifically to your needs.