Why Home Care?

When considering homecare, it's not uncommon that the question of hiring a private caregiver or friend of the family occasionally is raised. Typically these questions are borne out of 2 thoughts: 1. Cost savings 2. Simply not being aware that there are companies who specialize in providing in home care. The chart below is a fair comparison of some of the differences between hiring a caregiver privately compared to hiring Visiting Angels.

Hiring Caregivers Yourself   Hiring Visiting Angels

Pros
• Usually $2 to $3 less expensive than an agency *

Cons
• Background checks not done
• No supervisor to oversee quality of care
• Increased incidence of theft
• Client is responsible for withholding taxes • Client is responsible for workers compensation
• No backup for sickness/emergency
• Client/family must take time to manage the caregiver
• Caregivers usually need full time hours
• Reliability of the caregiver
• Client/family must confront the caregiver when issues arise

  

Pros
• Background checks performed on all caregivers
• Caregiver is supervised in quality of care • Less incidence of theft Bonded and licensed by the state
• Agency pays workers compensation
• Agency does tax withholding
• Backups for emergencies/sickness
• Quick response time
• You can interview the caregiver before they start
• Unreliable caregivers are weeded out during the screening process

Cons
Cost can be $2 to $3 more than hiring privately *

*The cost difference becomes negligible when workers compensation and the time it takes to withhold taxes is factored in.

Visiting Angels is structured in a way that allows you to maintain all the pros of hiring privately, such as being able to meet caregivers before starting, while at the same time turning the cons into pros. Even agency cost can be a pro when you factor in workers compensation and the time it takes to work with taxes.